College students' perceptions of spiritual people and religious people

There is great variation regarding the concepts of religiosity and spiritua lity in the psychology of religion literature. In an attempt to clarify the se constructs in the general population, 16 college students were recruited for a task of concept mapping to elicit their perceptions of what the desi gnations spiritual person and religious person mean. Many positive characte r traits were used to describe both religious and spiritual people. However , participants described spiritual people with an emphasis on intellectual activities and inner peace, placing less emphasis on external, physical cha racteristics than their descriptions of religious people. Broader dimension s underlying participants' descriptions are also discussed.