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Self-expansiveness is a transpersonal construct that uniquely provides a secular-naturalistic conceptualization related to, but distinct from, constructs based on a supernatural approach to spirituality. It avoids supernatural references that are often explicitly or implicitly embedded within many approaches to understanding spirituality. Self-expansiveness refers to the malleable nature of self-concept, which can expand in various transpersonal ways in space and time that have similarity to some naturalistic conceptualizations of spirituality, especially those related to interconnectedness. The Self-Expansiveness Level Form (SELF) is a short self-report measure operationalizing self-expansiveness that has demonstrated psychometric worth, as well as successful use, in a variety of empirical studies. In essence, the SELF is a measure of the willingness of individuals to view themselves through the process of identification in an expansive way that goes beyond limiting the self to the here-and-now. The SELF Transpersonal Scale taps into willingness to identify with unusual items, such as atoms in the body, all life, all that has happened, distant descendants, and the entire universe beyond time. The SELF thus provides an alternative approach to studying spirituality and has potential implications for clinical and other applications. |
