Mapping nonordinary experiences across cultures in the U.S. and India

Resumen

Cross-cultural similarities and differences in “nonordinary” experiences—experiences that stand out to people relative to what they consider ordinary or everyday—are not well understood by clinicians or researchers. Although such experiences—many of which are interpreted as religious, spiritual, extraordinary, or psychopathological—can give rise to outsized claims and have lasting effects on individual lives, they are often ignored, dismissed, or pathologized. Here, we map nonordinary experiences across cultures in the U.S. and India, with particular attention to the religiously affiliated and unaffiliated, and explore ways in which culture and experiences interact. We use a feature-based approach that separates a wide range of experiences, described phenomenologically, from the claims made about them, and investigates both. We explore questions such as: Are experiences more common in India—a culture that valorizes and actively cultivates them—than in the U.S.? Are the experiences people report shaped more by the country they live in (U.S. versus India) or the religion they affiliate with (Christianity versus Hinduism)? Which experiences are most personally transformative across cultures? What is the experiential profile of the religiously and spiritually unaffiliated? Do cultural traditions have their own distinctive experiential footprints? As a whole, we demonstrate the usefulness of our approach for mapping experiences deemed nonordinary across cultures, and propose that such experiences are not a relic of religious and spiritual traditions but are widespread and play important roles in the lives of many people today.

Áreas y palabras clave

Cómo citar (APA 7)

Barlev, M., Taves, A., & Kinsella, M. (2021). Mapping nonordinary experiences across cultures in the U.S. and India. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/fvc6w