Sanctification of Diverse Aspects of Life and Psychosocial Functioning: A Meta-Analysis of Studies From 1999 to 2019

Starting with a study on the sanctification of marriage (Mahoney et al., 1999), Pargament and Mahoney developed two psychological scales to assess whether viewing an aspect of life as a manifestation of God (i.e., theistic sanctification) and/or imbued with sacred qualities (i.e., nontheistic sanctification) was tied to better psychosocial functioning. The current study used meta-analytic techniques to summarize the strength of correlations between sanctification and psychosocial functioning across diverse aspects of life (e.g., human body, strivings, work, marriage, and parenting). We included data from 1999 to July 2019 that were published in peer-reviewed journals (N = 49) and dissertations that had not been published (N = 14). Across these sources, we identified 66 independent cases involving positive outcomes and 43 independent cases with negative outcomes. Greater sanctification was consistently associated with greater positive psychosocial adjustment (r = .22; 95% CI = .17-.25) and less negative functioning (r = -0.10; 95% CI = -.15- to -.06). We also compared the sanctification of close interpersonal relationships (r = 0.24, 95% CI = .20-.29) and other aspects of life (r = .16, 95% CI = .11-.22) for positive adjustment, and for negative adjustment (respective r's = -.12 and -.09, with 95% CIs of -.18 to -.06 and -.14 to -.04). Overall, these findings establish sanctification as a promising new construct for the psychology of religion and spiritually, one that holds significant implications for psychosocial functioning within multiple domains of life.