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. 2024 Mar 8:15:1332640.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1332640. eCollection 2024.

Longitudinal processes among humility, social justice activism, transcendence, and well-being

Peter J Jankowski  1   2 , Steven J Sandage  1 , David C Wang  3 , Michael J Zyphur  4 , Sarah A Crabtree  1 , Elise J Choe  1
Affiliations

Longitudinal processes among humility, social justice activism, transcendence, and well-being

Peter J Jankowski et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Introduction: Existing research shows positive associations between humility and well-being, and between civic engagement and well-being. Rarely have humility, civic engagement, and well-being been examined together. We build off of previous cross-sectional findings and a prior longitudinal study that used three waves of data and found significant positive bivariate correlations between humility and the presence of life purpose across time points.

Methods: Extending these previous findings, we used six waves of data obtained from graduate students at 18 seminaries across North America (N = 574; Mage = 31.54; 46.7% female; 65.3% White) to explore the dynamic associations among humility and life purpose, along with horizontal transcendence (an indicator of the attitudinal dimension of civic engagement) and social justice activism (an indicator for the behavioral dimension). We explored reciprocal short-run processes and dynamic long-run effects using a general cross-lagged panel model.

Results and discussion: We found robust evidence for a reciprocal influence between the presence of life purpose and horizontal transcendence, and long-run effects for initial levels of life purpose to influence later levels of horizontal transcendence. We also found long-run effects for the influence of initial levels of life purpose on later levels of humility, and initial levels of social justice activism on later levels of horizontal transcendence. Implications center on the use of the findings for planning future one-time life purpose and social justice interventions to affect changes in humility and horizontal transcendence.

Keywords: activism; humility; longitudinal; transcendence; well-being.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Impulse response function for life purpose on humility. Unstandardized effects and 95% confidence intervals. Plot depicts the influence of the initial random impulse on the outcome over time. A level plot indicates a persistence process, whereas a slope trending to zero indicates a “mean-reverting process” (Zyphur et al., 2020a, p. 669). u_LP, random impulse for life purpose; HM, humility. Time intervals, the effect of the initial level on the variable at time 1 on subsequent levels of that variable, time points 2–6.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Impulse response function for social justice activism on horizontal transcendence. Unstandardized effects and 95% confidence intervals. Plot depicts the influence of the initial random impulse on the outcome over time. A level plot indicates a persistence process, whereas a slope trending to zero indicates a “mean-reverting process” (Zyphur et al., 2020a, p. 669). u_SJA, random impulse for social justice activism; TRNO, horizontal transcendence; Time intervals, the effect of the initial level on the variable at time 1 on subsequent levels of that variable, time points 2–6.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Impulse response function for life purpose on horizontal transcendence. Unstandardized effects and 95% confidence intervals. Plot depicts the influence of the initial random impulse on the outcome over time. A level plot indicates a persistence process, whereas a slope trending to zero indicates a “mean-reverting process” (Zyphur et al., 2020a, p. 669). u_LP, random impulse for life purpose; TRNO, horizontal transcendence. Time intervals, the effect of the initial level on the variable at time 1 on subsequent levels of that variable, time points 2–6.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Impulse response function for horizontal transcendence. Unstandardized effects and 95% confidence intervals. Plot depicts the influence of the initial random impulse on the outcome over time. A level plot indicates a persistence process, whereas a slope trending to zero indicates a “mean-reverting process” (Zyphur et al., 2020a, p. 669). u_TRNO, random impulse for horizontal transcendence. Time intervals, the effect of the initial level on the variable at time 1 on subsequent levels of that variable, time points 2–6.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Impulse response function for life purpose. Unstandardized effects and 95% confidence intervals. Plot depicts the influence of the initial random impulse on the outcome over time. A level plot indicates a persistence process, whereas a slope trending to zero indicates a “mean-reverting process” (Zyphur et al., 2020a, p. 669). u_LP, random impulse for life purpose. Time intervals, the effect of the initial level on the variable at time 1 on subsequent levels of that variable, time points 2–6.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Impulse response function for social justice activism. Unstandardized effects and 95% confidence intervals. Plot depicts the influence of the initial random impulse on the outcome over time. A level plot indicates a persistence process, whereas a slope trending to zero indicates a “mean-reverting process” (Zyphur et al., 2020a, p. 669). u_SJA, random impulse for social justice activism. Time intervals, the effect of the initial level on the variable at time 1 on subsequent levels of that variable, time points 2–6.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Long-run effect for life purpose on horizontal transcendence from the RI-CLPM. Unstandardized effects and 95% confidence intervals. Plot depicts the within level process for life purpose to influence transcendence over time. A level plot indicates a persistence process, whereas a slope trending to zero indicates a “mean-reverting process” (Zyphur et al., 2020a, p. 669). LP, life purpose; TRNO, horizontal transcendence. Time intervals, the effect of the initial level on the variable at time 1 on subsequent levels of that variable, time points 2–6.
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Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was funded by the grants #61515 from the John Templeton Foundation. The Peale Foundation, grant title “Positive Psychology and Formation-Based Flourishing among Spiritual Leaders and Therapists.”

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