This study sought to extend the findings of previous research about the construct of spirituality–as measured by the Human Spirituality Scale (HSS) developed by Wheat. To expand the research across the entire adult life span, the researcher pooled preexisting data (Wheat) from middle-aged adults with data he obtained from 236 older adults living in independent living facilities. He analyzed the pooled data from 502 adults, with an age range of 25 to 98. Using the pooled data set, the researcher divided the data into five age groupings. He conducted confirmatory factor analysis, of the model of spirituality developed by Wheat, with the two separate data sets along with the pooled data set. The researcher determined that the model was an adequate measure of spirituality across the 5 developmental age groups. He also found the Wheat Model to be adequate when using data from either middle-aged or older-aged adults. Conclusions included: (a) spirituality is a multifaceted concept; (b) the HSS is appropriate for use in the study of human spirituality across the adult lifespan; (c) older adults are more spiritual than middle-aged adults; and (d) women are more spiritual than men. Practitioner recommendations included: (a) teach the dynamics of spirituality and aging in counselor preparation programs; and (b) assess clients’ level of spirituality during intake. Research recommendations included: (a) expand the HSS data set to allow for the development of scale scores to measure the factors proposed by Wheat; (b) develop norm tables to allow for the comparison of total HSS scores and scale scores by age groupings, and by sex; and (c) explore the relationship between HSS scores and other corollary issues such as culture and wisdom.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T19:20:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fabio L Stern.pdf: 2128171 bytes, checksum: b6e86071e8095d21802ed1e6db9e678a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-09-18 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / This thesis aimed to investigate the relationship between Naturology in Brazil and the New Age movement, starting from the hypothesis raised by Teixeira that the emergence of Naturology in Brazil is related to the New Age arrival to this country. To this end, 292 questionnaires were applied in naturologists graduated by the two Brazilian universities with Naturology courses recognized by the Brazilian Ministry of Education. In order to measure the degree of adherence to the New Age movement, a Likert scale was applied with 25 items related to major trends of the New Age movement highlighted by Hanegraaff. The results showed 51.7% of the naturologists objectively consider themselves newagers, and the active naturologists are precisely those who demonstrate the greatest degree of identification with the title. It was also verified that the Likert scale results were high in all categories, with averages exceeding 3 (out of 4) / A presente dissertação objetivou investigar as relações entre a Naturologia no Brasil e o mo-vimento da Nova Era, partindo da hipótese levantada por Teixeira de que o surgimento da Na-turologia no Brasil estaria relacionado à chegada da Nova Era ao país. Para tanto, foram apli-cados 292 questionários em naturólogos formados nas duas universidades brasileiras com cur-sos de Naturologia reconhecidos pelo MEC. Para aferir o grau de adesão ao movimento da Nova Era, uma escala do tipo Likert foi aplicada, com 25 itens referentes às grandes tendên-cias do movimento da Nova Era ressaltadas por Hanegraaff. Os resultados demonstraram que 51,7% dos naturólogos consideram-se objetivamente novaeristas, e que os naturólogos atuan-tes são justamente os que demonstram o maior grau de identificação com esse título. Também foi atestado que o grau de adesão da escala do tipo Likert foi alto em todas as categorias, com médias superiores a 3 (de um máximo de 4)