Self-transcendence

Self-transcendence is a personality trait that involves the expansion or evaporation of personal boundaries. This may potentially include spiritual experiences such as considering oneself an integral part of the universe. Several psychologists, including Viktor Frankl, Abraham Maslow, and Pamela G. Reed have made contributions to the theory of self-transcendence.

Self-transcendence is distinctive as the first trait-concept of a spiritual nature to be incorporated into a major theory of personality. It is one of the "character" dimensions of personality assessed in Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory. It is also assessed by the Self-Transcendence Scale and the Adult Self-Transcendence Inventory.

Several overlapping definitions of self-transcendence have been given. Viktor Frankl wrote, "The essentially self-transcendent quality of human existence renders man a being reaching out beyond himself."

According to Reed, self-transcendence is:

the capacity to expand self-boundaries intrapersonally (toward greater awareness of one's philosophy, values, and dreams), interpersonally (to relate to others' and one's environment), temporally (to integrate one's past and future in a way that has meaning for the present), and transpersonally (to connect with dimensions beyond the typically discernible world).

Maslow evaluates transcendence from several perspectives, such as time, space, culture, ego, opinion (opinion of others), and identification-love. "This means transcendence of the selfish Self. It also implies a wider circle of identifications, i.e., with more people approaching the limit of identification with all human beings."

Although there has not been a great deal of research into the validity of self-transcendence as a measure of spirituality, one study found that self-transcendence was related to a number of areas of belief and experience that have been traditionally considered "spiritual".

There is little research evaluating the validity of self-transcendence as a measure of spiritual aspects of personality. MacDonald and Holland found that people who were convinced that they had had a spiritual experience scored higher on self-transcendence compared to those who had not. They also found that self-transcendence had positive and meaningful associations with four areas of spirituality: beliefs about the existence and relevance of spirituality; spiritual experience; paranormal beliefs; and traditional religiousness but that self-transcendence was largely unrelated to existential well-being. Existential well-being was most strongly related to the Temperament and Character Inventory traits of high self-directedness and low harm avoidance. Self-directedness is associated with self-control and adaptability, whereas low harm avoidance is associated with emotional well-being. This suggests that self-transcendence may be a valid measure of areas of spirituality relating to spiritual beliefs, spiritual experiences, paranormal beliefs, and traditional religiousness, but is unrelated to having a sense of meaning and purpose in life, which is more related to other features of personality. Additionally, the dissolution-of-the-self in experience aspect of self-transcendence appears to have little relationship with spirituality and may be related to the trait's more pathological aspects.