710 vII. APPLICATIONS  AND  IMPLICATIONS
new measures of religiousness and the mean -
ing of existing measures.
Spiritual transcendence  is “the capacity of 
individuals to stand outside of their immedi -
ate sense of time and place and to view life 
from a larger, more objective perspective . . . 
in which a person sees a fundamental unity 
underlying the diverse strivings of nature” 
(Piedmont, 1999, p. 988). In developing the 
Spiritual Transcendence Scale (STS), a con -
sortium of theological experts from diverse 
faith traditions, including Buddhism, Hindu -
ism, Quakerism, Lutheranism, Catholicism, 
and Judaism, identified aspects of spiritual -
ity that were common to all of these faiths. 
The resulting items were analyzed within 
the context of the FFM and were shown to 
constitute an independent dimension. The 
STS manifested a single overall factor that 
comprises three “facet” scales: Prayer Ful -
fillment,  a feeling of joy and contentment 
that results from personal encounters with 
a transcendent reality; Universality,  a belief 
in the unitive nature of life; and Connect -
edness,  a belief that one is part of a larger 
human reality that cuts across generations 
and across groups. The STS evidenced incre -
mental validity by significantly predicting a 
number of relevant psychological outcomes 
even after the researcher controlled for Big 
Five traits (Piedmont, 1999).
For the STS to be shown to capture a uni -
versal aspect of spirituality, it would be nec -
essary to provide evidence that the instru -
ment remains reliable and valid in culturally 
diverse, religiously heterogeneous samples. 
The scale has been administered in Chi -
nese, Filipino, Indian, and Israeli samples, 
with participants reporting Hindu, Muslim, 
Christian, Jewish, and nonreligious affilia -
tion (Lau et al., 2016; Piedmont, 2007; Pied -
mont, Ciarrochi, Dy-  Liacco, & Williams, 
2009; Piedmont & Leach, 2002; Kor, Pi -
rutinsky, Mikulincer, Shoshani, & Miller, 
2019). Across studies, support is typically 
found for two of the facet scales, Prayer Ful -
fillment and Universality, and the overall 
domain. Connectedness is often unreliable, 
and certain items must be dropped across 
cultures. Nonetheless, these data highlight 
the value of cross-  cultural research on spiri -
tuality and show that the STS reflects spiri -
tual qualities relevant across very different 
religious traditions.Religion and  Characteristic  Adaptations
In addition to connections among personal -
ity, religiousness, and spirituality at the level 
of basic traits, there are even more points of 
convergence at the level of characteristic ad -
aptations.
Religion as the Characteristic Expression 
of Basic Tendencies . Both the McCrae and 
Costa (2008) and the McAdams and Pals 
(2006) models of personality may prove use -
ful for understanding how basic trait ten -
dencies are channeled into characteristic ad -
aptations that include culturally conditioned 
religious and spiritual goals and attitudes. 
Religiousness can be conceptualized as a 
characteristic adaptation that some people 
in some cultural contexts adopt to “fulfill” 
or express basic personality tendencies. One 
way this might occur is that conscientious 
and/or agreeable people tend to fulfill their 
tendencies toward conformity, order, or pro -
sociality by being religious (Saroglou, 2010).
People high in conscientiousness and 
agreeableness are motivated to conform to 
rules and laws, although for different rea -
sons (Costa & McCrae, 1995). Conscien -
tiousness motivates people to abide by rules 
and conventions, because the behavior of 
conscientious people tends generally to be 
rule- governed. Moreover, formal religious 
practices often provide a clear, delineated 
value system that might appeal to consci -
entious people but cause less conscientious 
people to bristle. Psychologically, religion 
may also be considered as a way to enhance 
self- control (McCullough & Willoughby, 
2009). People desire to have things under 
control, to believe in their capacity both to 
change a situation, and to change themselves 
in order to change reality. People gain a 
sense of control by making sense out of what 
is happening (seeing misfortune as part of a 
large, cosmic plan) and being able to predict 
what will occur in the future. So, religion 
satisfies this need for control.
Agreeableness also motivates people to 
abide by conventions, particularly out of 
concern for the feelings and rights of others. 
Therefore, agreeableness might move people 
toward religiousness in adulthood in part 
out of concern for minimizing conflict and 
maintaining harmony with their families by 