{"id":87727,"date":"2014-01-06T10:26:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-06T15:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=87727"},"modified":"2014-01-13T08:57:37","modified_gmt":"2014-01-13T13:57:37","slug":"measuring-spirituality-one-click-at-a-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/01\/measuring-spirituality-one-click-at-a-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Measuring Spirituality One Click at a Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bradley<\/a>
Bradley Wright, associate professor of sociology, oversees a new project that is gathering real-time data on Americans’ spirituality. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Americans\u2019 penchant for spirituality in contrast to other industrialized nations is well-known: a 2012 Pew Research study found that even 68 percent of those unaffiliated with any religion say they believe in God.<\/p>\n

But social scientists seeking to go beyond those basic questions have frequently been stymied by the logistics of getting people to provide crucial detail about their beliefs and the impact they have on their lives.<\/p>\n

A new project launched in November and overseen by Bradley Wright, associate professor of sociology, aims to change that.<\/p>\n

Soulpulse.org, a sleek, well-designed website designed to work as easily on a smartphone or tablet as on a desktop computer, is giving researchers a chance to gather experiential, real-time data on American spirituality and how it intersects with people\u2019s daily lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could write a hundred papers out of this and not even scratch the surface,\u201d says Wright, author of Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites … and Other Lies You’ve Been Told <\/i>(2010).<\/i><\/p>\n

It works like this:<\/p>\n

\"soulpulse\"<\/a><\/div>\n

People can sign up at www.soulpulse.org<\/a> for a two-week survey in which they\u2019ll receive two daily questionnaires via text or email or both. The questions range from general assessments of physical health and well-being like \u201cHow much sleep did you get last night?\u201d to whether the respondent has prayed in the last 24 hours.<\/p>\n

The questions vary from day to day, and change based on whether, in the initial signup, the respondent indicates a belief in God or not. At the end of two weeks, the respondent gets a link to a report featuring the results of the study, which can indicate, among other things, that someone is far more likely to feel joyful on a Friday than a Wednesday, or that a respondent tends to feel closer to God when relaxing than while using a computer at work.<\/p>\n

So far, with about 160 surveys completed, the study has already yielded some 92,000 individual data points, and it\u2019s found some rough early trends. For example, people feel most joyful when they are taking a walk or exercising and least joyful when they are working on their computer or watching television, and there seems to be a clear link between getting a good amount of sleep and overall feelings of spiritual well-being.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beauty of this is, as new research questions come up, we can add them to the survey and test them,\u201d Wright says. \u201cIt takes literally a matter of seconds to add a new question.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soulpulse.org is the result of discussions Wright had with the popular California-based pastor the Rev. John Ortberg, whose Silicon Valley congregation has produced some of the technical know-how on the project.<\/p>\n

Wright and Ortberg were aware of two studies that used new technology to conduct studies using what\u2019s known as the \u201cexperience sampling method,\u201d a way of evaluating reactions to situations in real time, rather than giving a list of questions that ask about experiences in the past. But those studies are gauging relative happiness, and Wright and Ortberg wondered if it would be possible to build a survey to measure spirituality.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The website Soupulse.org is designed to work as well on a smartphone or tablet as on a desktop computer. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After about 18 months of planning and preparation, Soulpulse.org launched with a team of about a dozen, including six computer experts and six researchers. The latter include, along with project manager Wright, two of his UConn colleagues: assistant professor of sociology Jeremy Pais and professor of psychology Crystal Park.<\/p>\n

Wright, whose expertise ranges from criminology to American evangelicals, is relishing the challenges that come with overseeing such a large and path-breaking project: \u201cThere have been weeks where I\u2019m on the phone with one of the most prominent psychology researchers in the country, and then I have lunch with a venture capitalist,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not that the road has been completely smooth, however. The surveys, which take about three minutes to complete, were designed to be easily used on a smartphone, a critical part of capturing people\u2019s experiences as they happen. That meant a big change for Wright.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t even have a smartphone before this,\u201d he laughs. \u201cI literally went to the Apple store and said, \u2018I need something called an iPhone. Can you help me?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

IPhone now securely in hand, Wright says he plans the study to last for years, and is working with the Soulpulse.org team on ways to make the data available to other researchers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to me to do work that goes out into the world and maybe makes a difference,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the most rewarding things about this project, because it really has the potential to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new mobile-ready survey offers a \u2018treasure trove\u2019 of data for social science researchers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":87726,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,2076,1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[131],"class_list":["post-87727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-research","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-12 13:53:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87727"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87917,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87727\/revisions\/87917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/87726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87727"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=87727"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=87727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}