Principal Investigator: J. Scott Tonigan, Ph.D.
Fetzer Institute
NIAAA, K02-AA00326-01
Because aspects of altruistic love are central to its Twelve Steps, Alcoholics Anonymous is a promising and readily accessible context within which to study the development and expression of agape. In this study, altruistic love was treated as a latent construct encompassing emotive empathy (in contrast to cognitive empathy), compassion, and willingness to express personal intimacy. Prospective hypotheses were derived from the program of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) regarding helping behavior, spiritual growth, and altruistic love. Two complementary studies were done, both having the general aim of investigating the moderating effect of spiritual growth on altruistic love. It was hypothesized that spirituality will not uniquely predict helping behaviors in general, but will mediate altruistic love. Study A, a cross sectional survey of four AA groups (N = 99), investigated the underlying structure of primary study measures, offering correlational tests of the relationship between altruistic love and spirituality. Study B involved adding measures of helping behavior and altruistic love to a 10-year follow-up study of the Project MATCH clients recruited in Albuquerque (N = 226). Here, prospective hypotheses took advantage of the longitudinal design and a rich database of highly reliable and valid measures.
For more information, call (505) 925-2384, or email jtonigan@unm.edu
Fetzer Institute
NIAAA, K02-AA00326-01
Because aspects of altruistic love are central to its Twelve Steps, Alcoholics Anonymous is a promising and readily accessible context within which to study the development and expression of agape. In this study, altruistic love was treated as a latent construct encompassing emotive empathy (in contrast to cognitive empathy), compassion, and willingness to express personal intimacy. Prospective hypotheses were derived from the program of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) regarding helping behavior, spiritual growth, and altruistic love. Two complementary studies were done, both having the general aim of investigating the moderating effect of spiritual growth on altruistic love. It was hypothesized that spirituality will not uniquely predict helping behaviors in general, but will mediate altruistic love. Study A, a cross sectional survey of four AA groups (N = 99), investigated the underlying structure of primary study measures, offering correlational tests of the relationship between altruistic love and spirituality. Study B involved adding measures of helping behavior and altruistic love to a 10-year follow-up study of the Project MATCH clients recruited in Albuquerque (N = 226). Here, prospective hypotheses took advantage of the longitudinal design and a rich database of highly reliable and valid measures.
For more information, call (505) 925-2384, or email jtonigan@unm.edu
