Spirituality, self-esteem and the mechanisms of social and temporal comparison

Abstract

Our research objective was to demonstrate that spirituality decreases the mechanisms of social and temporal comparison, and not without consequence, particularly when regarding self-esteem. Thus, this quantitative study aimed to investigate the relationship between a-religious spirituality, social and temporal comparisons and self-esteem. Four questionnaires were completed by 331 participants, each evaluating the different variables. The results confirmed our hypothesis which suggested that individuals with high spiritual scores would have low social and temporal comparison scores on the one hand, and high self-esteem on the other. The theoretical implications and limitations of the study are discussed.