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Oneness Beliefs and Their Effect on Life Satisfaction
Laura Marie Edinger-Schons
University of Mannheim
The notion of being at one with a divine principle, life, the world, other persons, or even activities has
been discussed in a wide variety of scientific research streams from different disciplines. It is the central
goal of this article to empirically capture the notion of oneness beliefs as a time-invariant individual
character trait and analyze its consequences. The results of 2 large-scale (N
1
⫽7,137; N
2
⫽67,562)
empirical studies using nonstudent samples reveal that the oneness beliefs scale has good psychometric
properties and correlates with related variables whereby being clearly discriminable from them. Intra-
individual comparisons of 2 repeated measurements of oneness beliefs show a high correlation that is an
indicator for the time-invariance and stability of the personality factor. The hypothesized positive effect
of oneness beliefs on life satisfaction can be confirmed by applying cross-lagged regressions to test for
the directionality of the effect (Study 1). The large nonstudent sample in Study 2 allows for an analysis
of the effect of oneness beliefs on life satisfaction controlling for the religious affiliation of the
participants. Results reveal a significantly positive effect of oneness beliefs on life satisfaction, even
rendering the effect of some religious affiliations insignificant or negative.
Keywords: oneness beliefs, (subliminally activated) oneness fantasies, self-other overlap, connectedness,
life satisfaction
“A sense of being one with all of creation, being one with the ocean,
being one with the heavens...there’s a feeling of completeness.”
(Anona Napoleon—Surfing for Life)
“All Being, despite this plurality, is a Unity still.” (Plotinus)
The idea of oneness can be traced back to ancient philosophy.
The Presocratics already discussed “the one” as the first principle
of all being things. The argument of the “one over the many” (hen
epi pollon) was introduced by Plato, meaning that the simple “one”
always has to come before the complex “many.” The Neoplatonist
Plotinus (205–270) saw the transcendent “ONE” (òⱊ
ε⬘)asthe
source of all being things. In his theory all embodied individual
souls are permanently rooted in this first principle. The idea of all
things being rooted in one underlying unifying principle has per-
sisted from the Presocratics as the first documented western phi-
losophers to modern-day esotericism in the 21st century.
The notion of being at one with a divine principle, life, the
world, other persons, or even activities has been discussed in
various religious traditions but also in a wide variety of scientific
research streams from different disciplines. Thereby, research re-
sults from various disciplines point to the positive effects of
feeling at one with life, connected to others, or connected to nature
on adaptation, well-being, and life satisfaction. For instance, psy-
chological research in the 1980s has intensively and controver-
sially discussed oneness fantasies as a regressive longing for the
idealized good mother of early childhood. Research on the effect
of subliminally activated symbiotic feelings of oneness has been
conducted mainly in the laboratories of Lloyd H. Silverman in
New York. The group of researchers around Silverman produced
a series of results suggesting that the subliminal stimulus
“MOMMY AND I ARE ONE” leads to significantly enhanced
adaptation in widely varying populations of respondents ranging
from patients suffering from schizophrenia to addictions or obe-
sity.
Further, during the past 25 years a considerable amount of
research has been done on the personality trait of connected-
ness, whereas different types of connectedness (to social groups
vs. to nature) have been discussed and have been shown be
beneficial for the well-being of individuals (e.g., Hill, 2006;
Lee & Robbins, 1995;Rude & Burnham, 1995).
Situational oneness experiences are frequently described by, for
example, artists, meditators, runners, and writers and are com-
monly understood as healthy, progressive, and life enhancing
components of human experience. Chirban (2000) for instance
describes “listening to a piece of music, feeling awe-struck by the
magnificence of nature, experiencing the rapture and ecstasy of
romantic and sexual love, and achieving spiritual union with a
higher being” as “ineffable moments in human experience” (p.
247). From her analysis of various personal accounts of such
healthy oneness experiences she concludes that this loosening of
the borders of the self’s barrier to the unity with an “other” leads
to “the reemergence of a self- enhanced by increased vitality and
more intricate integration” (p. 247).
During the last four decades, research in the field of the psy-
chology of religion and spirituality has investigated situational
mystical experiences that, according to the accepted definition,
include a subdimension of perceiving everything as one (Hood,
This article was published Online First April 11, 2019.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Laura
Marie Edinger-Schons, Corporate Social Responsibility, University of
Mannheim, Palace, 68131 Mannheim, Germany. E-mail: schons@bwl.uni-
mannheim.de
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Psychology of Religion and Spirituality
© 2019 American Psychological Association 2020, Vol. 12, No. 4, 428– 439
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