This study applies an attachment framework and explores the relationship between a person's ability to extend grace toward themself and their experiences of receiving grace from caregiving figures and God. Grace from a theological point of view and a psychological point of view will be examined. The theory of attachment will be used to examine how attachment styles relate to how we experience grace in relation to ourselves, our parents, and God. Ninety-nine participants took a survey on the Qualtrics survey platform (variable ABC, etc.) and answered questions about their general attachment style, their perception of God’s grace toward them, their perception of parents’ grace toward them, and the extent to which they extend grace toward themselves. This study highlights that people have varying capacities for extending grace toward self and that these differences might be related to their experiences in relationships with God and parental figures. The results of this study can inform congregational and therapeutic approaches to increasing peoples' capacity for extending grace toward themselves and others through a better understanding of how attachment dynamics shape the way grace is understood and practiced.

Lucid dreaming is perceived as an abstract, sometimes mystical experience that strays into the realm of alternate states of consciousness. Moving into the modern day, current dream literature has found a positive connection between the experiences had within lucid dreams and one’s waking experiences. This means that it has been found that lucid dreams have a positive impact on one’s waking mood and well-being. This research will build upon that connection by hypothesizing that the more spiritual one views their lucid dreaming experiences, the greater their waking well-being will be. The goal of this research is to draw an empirical connection between spiritual experiences and increased waking well-being. The research will use a survey to gauge both participants’ self-reported non-spiritual and spiritual experiences in lucid dreams as well as their waking well-being levels. Data analysis will then be conducted to measure the correlations between spiritual and secular lucid dreaming experiences with waking well-being. An interview may be in order to gather a deeper understanding of the participants’ lucid dreaming experiences. This project is intended to be followed by further research into the direct impact spiritual approaches to psychological concepts has on one’s waking life.

Religious views can function psychologically in different ways, such as to create a sense of certainty or as a base for existential questioning. These views are called security-focused (SF) and growth-focused (GF) orientations, respectively. The four surveys that were administered in this study were the Conflict/Compatibility Scale (CCS; Leight et al, 2019) composed of Explanations (E) and Human/World Interaction (H/WI) subscales, the Quest Scale (QS; Batson et al, 1991), the Theistic Intellectual Humility Scale (TIHS; Hill et al, 2019) composed of Intellectual Submission to the Divine (ISD), Human Finite Limitations (HFL), and Belief Bias and Limitations (BBL) subscales, and the Defensive Theology Scale (DTS; Beck, 2004). The hypotheses of this study were: 1) SF will positively relate to ISD, HFL, and H/WI and negatively relate to BBL and E, 2) GF will negatively correlate to ISD, HFL, H/WI and positively correlate to BBL and E, and 3) TIHS will positively correlate with the CCS. Participants were 273 undergraduate students from two private evangelical Christian liberal arts universities in the West South Central United States. The results of this study indicated that hypotheses one and two were partially supported (SF was not negatively correlated with the hypothesized variables, while GF was not negatively correlated with H/WI), while the third hypothesis was fully supported. The implications of this study will be discussed in light of the existential tradeoffs involved with the different religious orientations.

There is a commonly held belief that religious people are not inclined to see high compatibility between religion and science, but this may not be the case. In addition, the psychological functioning of religious beliefs may impact this compatibility or conflict. A security-focused (SF) religious orientation prioritizes certainty and security while a growth-focused religious orientation prioritizes questioning and doubt. This study aims to look at the correlations between religion and science compatibility and the implications they have on growth and security within individuals. In light of that, the following hypotheses were proposed: 1) Security-focused (SF) religious orientation will be positively correlated with religious identity, human-world (Conflict Compatibility subscale scale), interactions, and negatively correlated with explanations (Conflict Compatibility subscale scale), 2) Growth-focused (GF) religious orientation will be positively correlated with explanations (Conflict Compatibility subscale scale), scientific identity, and with human-world interactions (Conflict Compatibility subscale scale), and 3) DTS will be negatively correlated with QS. Participants for this study were gathered from two southwestern evangelical private universities and through social media. In this study, the mean age of participants was 25, 90.% expressed belief in God, 74% were undergraduate students, 71.3% identified as white, and 57.5% were female. The results of this study indicate that hypothesis 1) was partially supported (SF was not negatively correlated with explanations), 2) fully supported, and 3) fully supported. The results of this study will be discussed in light of the existential tradeoffs involved with the different religious orientations.