Moral inclusiveness-the scope of one's moral circle-has traditionally been studied as a single, global trait. This study instead applied latent profile analysis (LPA) to uncover nuanced moral inclusiveness profiles spanning nested layers of relational proximity (family, community, global citizen, and nonhuman living beings). The study looked across four validated scales-Kindness, Compassion, Global-Mindedness, and Speciesism-and further examined how these profiles relate to trauma, mental health, and spirituality. A cross-sectional sample of 763 U.S. participants completed measures assessing moral inclusiveness, mental health, lifetime and recent traumatic events, and three spiritual dimensions: general spirituality, spiritual decline, and awakened awareness. LPA revealed five distinct profiles: Ingroup Concern, Outgroup Concern, Average Overall Concern, Universal Empathy, and Lovers. The Ingroup Concern class exhibited the highest levels of psychopathology, the most recent traumatic events, and elevated spiritual decline. The Universal Empathy and Lovers classes reported low current distress, minimal spiritual decline, and significantly higher awakened awareness, suggesting they experienced adversity yet still maintained meaning and/or guidance. Lifetime trauma exposure alone did not preclude a broad moral scope of inclusion: the Ingroup Concern and Universal Empathy classes both reported substantial trauma histories but diverged in moral inclusiveness, possibly due to differences in spiritual injury and ongoing stress. These findings reveal that a more parochial or limited moral scope is associated with lifetime and recent adversity, current mental health challenges, and spiritual injury. More expansive concern for human and fellow living beings is associated with positive spiritual engagement and fewer immediate negative life events.

Intrauterine infection and inflammation are major causes of preterm labor, yet antibiotics alone often fail to prevent preterm birth despite achieving microbial clearance. Interleukin1 (IL1) is a key mediator of intra-amniotic inflammation and functional progesterone withdrawal, processes linked to labor initiation. We tested whether IL1 blockade with the clinically approved IL1 receptor antagonist, anakinra, could reduce inflammation and preterm labor in a Rhesus macaque model of intra-amniotic Escherichia coli infection followed by delayed antibiotic treatment. Here we show that anakinra reduced the incidence of preterm labor by 40% (p=0.07), attenuated inflammation in the fetal membranes and cervix, and preserved progesterone receptor-B abundance in the fetal membranes. These effects were most pronounced in animals protected from preterm labor. Our findings in a relevant model support the translational potential of combining IL1 blockade with antibiotics for infection-associated preterm labor.

Background: The quality and valence of psychedelic experiences are influenced by a range of psychological and contextual factors. This study examines baseline mood and the "relational triad"-comprising social connectedness, mindfulness, and spirituality-as potential predictors of the quality of naturalistic psychedelic experiences. Methods: Data were drawn from the Predicting Responses to Psychedelics dataset, a longitudinal study tracking 654 individuals planning to take a psychedelic substance. Participants completed self-report measures at five time points, before and after ingestion. Baseline mood (depression, anxiety, and wellbeing) and relational triad factors were assessed at Timepoint 1, while acute psychedelic experience quality was measured at Timepoint 3 using validated scales (MEQ-30, CEQ, and ASC). Results: Mystical and challenging experiences were weakly but positively correlated. Baseline depression and anxiety were predictive of more challenging experiences but not of mystical-type experiences, while baseline wellbeing predicted more mystical and less challenging experiences. Mindfulness and spirituality were positively associated with mystical experiences, while social connectedness and mindfulness were inversely associated with challenging experiences. Conclusions: These findings extend previous research by demonstrating that baseline psychological and relational factors shape the nature of psychedelic experiences.

We investigate presentations of spiritually grounded character (SGC) in a very large international sample of children and adolescents. Two-hundred ninety-seven thousand, eight hundred and seventeen youth aged eight to seventeen from 12 countries completed the VIA Inventory of Strengths for Youth (VIA-Y-R) and the nine-item Youth Spirituality Scale (YSS-9). Latent profile analysis (LPA) was applied using youth spirituality and the six virtues of the VIA-Y-R as indicator variables. LPA generated a best-fitting solution with five non-overlapping profiles of SGC, where spirituality and character strengths generally went hand in hand. Spirituality scores matched virtue scores in three out of five profiles (i.e. High, Low, and Very Low SGC). At moderate-to-high levels of SGC, two mirror-image profiles emerged: one with relatively high spirituality, wisdom, and transcendence and the other with relatively high courage, humanity, justice, and temperance. Findings suggest that SGC may be a meaningful latent construct in youth populations.

This study aimed to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the online delivery of a spiritual–mind–body (SMB) wellness intervention previously delivered and validated in person, Awakened Awareness for Adolescents (AA-A), designed for spiritual individuation among emerging-adult undergraduates. Undergraduates aged 18–25 (N = 39) participated in an open trial study. Enrollment, retention, and engagement rates were calculated to assess the feasibility of delivering AA-A online. Thematic analysis on qualitative feedback was conducted to assess acceptability. Clinical and spiritual well-being were assessed before and after AA-A delivery using self-report measures and pre-to-post-intervention changes examined. Results were compared to previous findings from AA-A delivered in person. Interactions between sexual and gender minority (SGM) status and AA-A delivery method on spiritual well-being change scores were explored. Significant improvements were seen in anxiety and post-traumatic stress symptoms and spiritual well-being. Affordances and constraints of the online format were identified across three themes. SGM students showed significantly greater improvements than non-SGM students in depression and anxiety symptoms and spiritual well-being. AA-A is feasible and acceptable in an online format and can support students’ spiritual individuation and mental health in a way that is comparable to its in-person format. Furthermore, the online format may be particularly beneficial for SGM students to actively participate and engage.

In this study, we explored how people experience love and how these experiences are linked to their overall mental health, well-being, and spirituality. A total of 1499 U.S. adults completed a survey that measured six different aspects of love. Using Latent Profile Analysis (LPA), we found evidence in support of four distinct profiles: High Love, Above-Average Love, Below-Average Love, and Low Love. The High Love group, which was characterized by particularly strong feelings of religious love, reported the highest levels of life satisfaction, gratitude, and positive emotions, as well as the lowest levels of anxiety and depression. The Above-Average Love group showed moderately high levels of love with some emphasis on spirituality, while the Below-Average Love and Low Love groups experienced lower overall levels of love and spiritual connection, along with poorer mental health outcomes. Our findings suggest that a deep sense of love—especially when it involves a connection to a higher power—may be a crucial factor in promoting mental health and life satisfaction.

There is alarming psychological dysfunction within our universities. Depression, together with anxiety, substance abuse and chronic stress is widespread among students and faculty. Additionally, there is increasing evidence of growing cultural, racial, political and other social-borne friction on and around campuses. Clinical and epidemiological evidence suggests that spirituality could have protective benefits for mental health. But the current functioning of many of our universities discourages introducing spirituality in academic culture, mission and values, not to mention curricular and extracurricular activities. This article investigates the root causes of this situation in different professional fields, namely pedagogy and psychology education, healthcare education, economics and business education and architecture education. Initiatives are presented where opportunities for spiritual approaches and practices are provided in universities. Finally, the vision of an 'Awakened Campus' is discussed which aims to create free and safe spaces for students, faculty and university leaders for spiritual growth and development.

Previous research has documented broad benefits of spiritual intervention programs, including improved spirituality and ameliorated mental health symptoms. However, long-term follow-up examinations of such interventions have yet to be conducted. This study reports on changes in psychological and spiritual variables from posttest to 3-month follow-up in a sample of U.S. undergraduate students. N = 84 undergraduate students ages 18–25 (M = 19.75, SD = 1.6; 69 female, 11 male, and 4 nonbinary) received Awakened Awareness for Adolescents (AA-As), a spirit–mind–body (SMB) intervention composed of 8 weekly 90-min sessions, and completed measures of spirituality (spirituality, spiritual growth, spiritual decline, and Awakened Awareness) and mental health (depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress) at posttest and again at 3-month follow-up. Paired-sample t-tests revealed maintenance of spiritual improvements (Awakened Awareness, spiritual growth, and relational spirituality with the Higher Power) with the exception of reversal of spiritual decline and significant ongoing improvements in clinical measures in the months following posttest. Additionally, we observed a moderating effect such that changes in spiritual decline after posttest were associated with follow-up posttraumatic stress. An ongoing lived transcendent relationship with the Higher Power, Awakened Awareness, and spiritual growth appears to offer sustained protection at three-month follow-up against depression and symptoms of trauma. Our findings support the efficacy of AA-A as well as the need for ongoing SMB wellness resources.

This study extends a previous one revising the VIA-Youth. Goals of the revision included reducing length and extending age range down to 8. After an initial revision, further discussion suggested the need for a more secular version of the spirituality scale. Based on evidence of changes in the understanding of spirituality during adolescence, separate sets of candidate items were generated for ages 8-12 and 13-17 with two overlapping items. The revised materials were administered to 94,487 youth online and through two school districts. Retaining the two overlapping items in both sets did not reduce fit. The result is two versions of the inventory for ages 8-12 (VIA-Y-1) and 13-17 (VIA-Y-2) that differ only on two items included in the spirituality scale. These offer a measure of spirituality in youth that is developmentally sensitive without relying on items referencing a religious framework.

Empirical research on mindfulness continues to highlight the psychological benefits of mindfulness practice with respect to mental health in children and adolescents. A few of the psychological benefits of mindfulness include decreased mental health issues, increased emotion regulation skills, and enhanced executive functioning. Similarly, the scientific literature on spirituality has demonstrated concordant findings with respect to how spirituality serves as a protective factor for the mental and emotional well-being in children and adolescents. Despite a long-standing historical and religious integration between these two related concepts, mindfulness and spirituality continue to be bifurcated from each other in many Western academic and educational contexts. This chapter presents the implications of this conceptual bifurcation within mindfulness educational programmes and empirical research with regards to positive moral development in youth. Furthermore, the authors present evidence that highlights the importance of placing mindfulness education and practice back within a spiritual and/or religious context for the positive moral development in youth.

The present study aimed to characterize the relationship between mystical experience and psychopathology measures in a general-population sample of 763 U.S. adults. The participants were assessed across various domains including psychopathology, spirituality, personality, and life experience. The analysis revealed three distinct profiles among individuals: Transcendent Wellness, Transcendent Struggle, and Non-Transcendent Wellness. The Transcendent Wellness profile demonstrated higher scores in belongingness, mindfulness, and lived/integrated spirituality compared to the Transcendent Struggle profile. Belongingness and mindfulness were identified as mitigating factors, reducing the positive association between mystical experience and depression and anxiety symptoms. Additionally, lived/integrated spirituality attenuated this association, particularly in relation to anxiety. Conventional religiosity measures, however, did not exhibit the same moderating effects. The authors propose a framework in which relationally grounded spirituality, manifesting in the form of connection to fellow human, self, and higher power, constitutes a foundation for processing of and sense-making around mystical experience.

OBJECTIVE This study examined rates of positive screens for depression and posttraumatic stress and their comorbidity among undergraduate (N = 77) and graduate (N = 136) students who participated in on-campus Spiritual-Mind-Body (SMB) wellness interventions. METHODS Participants completed the PHQ-9 and the PCL-C before starting an 8-week in-person SMB wellness intervention. Elevated depression was indicated by a score of ≥10 on the PHQ-9; elevated posttraumatic stress (PTS) was indicated by a score of ≥30 on the PCL-C. RESULTS There were unexpectedly high rates of posttraumatic stress among both undergraduate (39%) and graduate (32%) students without the presence of comorbid depression. A small minority of students experienced depression apart from elevated PTS symptoms. Overall, students reported high levels of clinically relevant psychopathology. CONCLUSION On-campus wellness centers may offer an appropriate setting for the screening of trauma-related distress and depression and their comorbidity to address the psychiatric concerns of SMB wellness-seeking students.

Abstract This chapter presents the basic science on child spirituality paired with the findings of collaborative educational field research to culminate in the initiative for Awakened Schools. Basic science shows a child’s spirituality to be an innate capacity, with roughly one-third of adult formation attributed to heritability and two-thirds attributed to environmental socialization. When the natural “spiritual core” of the child is supported, the likelihood of a lifetime of greater mental health and thriving, committed and meaningful relationships, and being outwardly effective in the world are all substantially increased. The traditional immersive places in society where spirituality has been fostered in children and adolescents are decreasingly engaged by families, mitigating their ability to fulfill that role. Thus, other youth-centered institutions must find ways to nurture children’s innate spirituality to provide the necessary two-thirds socialization of the spiritual core. Schools thus offer a rich context to support the spiritual core, in a way that is constitutional and consistent with any given school’s mission to focus or not focus on religion. This chapter presents the findings of a three-year qualitative study of 22 schools (private and publicly funded; religious and secular in mission) which intentionally have designed their relational cultures to be spiritually supportive. Our findings reveal 11 drivers of a spiritually supportive, or awakened, school culture. These 11 drivers are concrete and actionable, ready to be implemented by any school as well as other institutions (private or public; religious or secular) to nurture the development of spirituality in children and adolescents.

Background Preterm birth is often associated with chorioamnionitis and leads to increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism. Preterm birth can lead to cerebellar underdevelopment, but the mechanisms of disrupted cerebellar development in preterm infants are not well understood. The cerebellum is consistently affected in people with autism spectrum disorders, showing reduction of Purkinje cells, decreased cerebellar grey matter, and altered connectivity. Methods Preterm rhesus macaque fetuses were exposed to intra-amniotic LPS (1 mg, E. coli O55:B5) at 127 days (80%) gestation and delivered by c-section 5 days after injections. Maternal and fetal plasma were sampled for cytokine measurements. Chorio-decidua was analyzed for immune cell populations by flow cytometry. Fetal cerebellum was sampled for histology and molecular analysis by single-nuclei RNA-sequencing (snRNA-seq) on a 10× chromium platform. snRNA-seq data were analyzed for differences in cell populations, cell-type specific gene expression, and inferred cellular communications. Results We leveraged snRNA-seq of the cerebellum in a clinically relevant rhesus macaque model of chorioamnionitis and preterm birth, to show that chorioamnionitis leads to Purkinje cell loss and disrupted maturation of granule cells and oligodendrocytes in the fetal cerebellum at late gestation. Purkinje cell loss is accompanied by decreased sonic hedgehog signaling from Purkinje cells to granule cells, which show an accelerated maturation, and to oligodendrocytes, which show accelerated maturation from pre-oligodendrocytes into myelinating oligodendrocytes. Conclusion These findings suggest a role of chorioamnionitis on disrupted cerebellar maturation associated with preterm birth and on the pathogenesis of neurodevelopmental disorders among preterm infants.

IntroductionIL6 signaling plays an important role in triggering labor and IL6 is an established biomarker of intrauterine infection/inflammation (IUI) driven preterm labor (PTL). The biology of IL6 during IUI at the maternal-fetal interface was investigated in samples from human subjects and non-human primates (NHP).MethodsPregnant women with histologic chorioamnionitis diagnosed by placenta histology were recruited (n=28 term, n=43 for preterm pregnancies from 26-36 completed weeks of gestation). IUI was induced in Rhesus macaque by intraamniotic injection of lipopolysachharide (LPS, n=23). IL1 signaling was blocked using Anakinra (human IL-1 receptor antagonist, n=13), and Tumor necrosis factor (TNF) signaling was blocked by anti TNF-antibody (Adalimumab n=14). The blockers were given before LPS. All animals including controls (intraamniotic injection of saline n=27), were delivered 16h after LPS/saline exposure at about 80% gestation.ResultsIUI induced a robust expression of IL6 mRNAs in the fetal membranes (chorion-amnion-decidua tissue) both in humans (term and preterm) and NHP. The major sources of IL6 mRNA expression were the amnion mesenchymal cells (AMC) and decidua stroma cells. Additionally, during IUI in the NHP, ADAM17 (a protease that cleaves membrane bound IL6 receptor (IL6R) to release a soluble form) and IL6R mRNA increased in the fetal membranes, and the ratio of IL6 and soluble forms of IL6R, gp130 increased in the amniotic fluid signifying upregulation of IL6 trans-signaling. Both IL1 and TNF blockade suppressed LPS-induced IL6 mRNAs in the AMC and variably decreased elements of IL6 trans-signaling.DiscussionThese data suggest that IL1 and TNF blockers may be useful anti-inflammatory agents via suppression of IL6 signaling at the maternal-fetal interface.

The general objective of this grounded theory multiple-case study was to further apprehend how independent K-12 schools within America foster a connection between children and adolescent students and the natural world through examining the relationship between this connection and (a) the school community (“community connectedness”) and (b) personal sense/belief about spirituality. This study utilized a grounded theory multiple-case study approach to perform secondary data analysis on pre-existing data collected during the original parent study. From this parent study, two schools from the initial cohort of 20 were selected and their data were examined for this grounded theory multiple-case study. Data were primarily collected through school site visits that were one to two days in duration.

Introduction:The relationship between personal spirituality and character strengths has not been adequately explored. We investigate this relationship in an adult sample via latent profile analysis.Methods:Seven-hundred and sixty-three individuals aged 18 to 68years completed a survey of personal spirituality (e.g., Delaney Spirituality Scale), character strengths and virtues (e.g., VIA Inventory), flourishing (i.e., general wellbeing; PERMA Profiler), and various demographic variables (e.g., age, race, sexual orientation, yearly income, education level, religiosity, importance of spirituality and religion, and religious attendance). Latent profile analysis (LPA) was performed to identity profiles of individuals based on their reported levels personal spirituality and character strengths (i.e., VIA virtues).Results:A best-fitting model consisting of four distinct, non-overlapping profiles emerged. In every profile, the degree of personal spirituality was consistently associated with strengths of character. Profiles that exhibited high levels of spirituality and character also reported greater levels of flourishing. Furthermore, profiles high in spirituality and character were associated with the observance of formal religion, report of high levels of spiritual and religious importance, and report of frequent attendance of religious services.Discussion:These findings suggest that spirituality and character go hand in hand, that higher levels of the conjoint spirituality and character or "spiritually grounded character" correspond to greater wellbeing and may be generated or supported by a formal religious identification, practice, and community.

This chapter presents a revised framework for understanding how schools create a spiritually supportive, or awakened, school culture. In a prior study, the researchers identified how schools intentionally design an awakened school culture which supports students' innate spirituality. This research identified 11 drivers of spiritually supportive schools which are applicable to all schools. During the 2021-2022 academic year, these 11 drivers were the foundation for a year-long professional development course for educators: The Awakened Schools Institute. Through the Awakened Schools Institute, educators learned the 11 drivers of a spiritually supportive school culture and applied them to their own classrooms and schools. Through observations and surveys about the application of the 11 drivers through this year-long course, researchers identified a 12th driver of a spiritually supportive school culture: the reauthorization of teachers. This chapter presents the identification of the 12th driver of awakened school culture.