The Yearning Paradox: How Epistemic Orientations Distinguish Virtuous and Vulnerable Pathways of Spiritual Seeking
Cindel White (York University)
Adam Baimel (Oxford Brookes University)
Award: $236,827.67
Start Date: October 1, 2026
End Date: September 20, 2028
Focus: Spiritual yearning can make people receptive to unfamiliar ideas, traditions, and communities. That openness may be intellectually virtuous, but it can also become indiscriminate. This project examines the resulting 'yearning paradox': why the same search for transcendence, moral grounding, and meaning may sometimes promote curiosity, tolerance, and well-being, yet may at other times increase vulnerability to pseudoprofound claims, misinformation, conspiracy theories, prejudice, and exploitative communities.
Approach: Across five preregistered studies, the researchers will test whether the key difference lies in a person's epistemic orientation - the habits used to assess claims and evidence. Surveys will compare intellectual humility and actively open-minded thinking with intuition-trusting and evidence-dismissing styles across diverse religious and nonreligious groups. Behavioral economic games will measure actual generosity toward religious in-groups and out-groups. Experiments will then make spiritual yearning temporarily salient and test its effects on prosocial behavior and interest in conspiratorial media.
Contribution: The project will show whether spiritual yearning itself drives constructive or harmful outcomes, and which intellectual habits channel it in either direction. Its findings will be relevant to clinicians supporting people through meaning crises or religious transitions, educators and policymakers working on digital literacy and radicalization, and spiritual communities seeking to cultivate sincere inquiry without credulity. Planned outputs include scholarly articles, conference presentations, public research summaries, and training for postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate researchers.
