Conceptualisations of personal growth in Ghanaian Orthodox Christians

ABSTRACT

Personal growth is integral to mental health. Hegemonic psychological theories about personal growth were formulated in an individualistic culture where people experience an independent self. Conceptualisations of personal growth may be different in collectivistic cultures where people experience an interdependent self. Ghanaian Orthodox Christians are embedded in a collectivistic culture where religion permeates every-day life. The aim of this study was to investigate how Ghanaian Orthodox Christians conceptualise personal growth. We interviewed 12 participants from the University of Ghana who belonged to different Orthodox Christian Churches. The results showed that the participants wanted material success, and they acknowledged that this takes effort. Relationships were facilitating their ambitions, and for that reason learning to adapt to social norms was important. Most important of all was their relationship to God. The results implied a conceptualisation of personal growth that relies on an interdependent experience of the self.

KEYWORDS:

• Personal growth
• well-being
• Orthodox Christian
• Ghana

Personal growth is integral to mental health (World Health Organization, 2001). For this reason, personal growth has been explored at length in psychology, resulting in concepts such as the “fully functioning person” (Rogers, 1961), “self-actualization” (Maslow, 1968), Jahoda's mental health criteria (Jahoda, 1958), Allport's view on maturity (Allport, 1961), Buhler's “life tendencies” (Buhler, 1935), and Erikson's psychosocial stages (Erikson, 1959). Ryff synthesised this work into a concept of personal growth, in which a person high in personal growth:

has a feeling of continued development; sees self as growing and expanding; is open to new experiences; has sense of realizing his or her potential; sees improvement in self and behaviour over time; is changing in ways that reflect more self-knowledge and effectiveness. (Ryff, 1989, p. 1072)

Personal growth concerns the self. People experience the self differently across cultures. In the individualistic cultures of Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, and Democratic (a.k.a. WEIRD; Henrich et al., 2010) countries, people experience an independent self that aspires to develop its unique characteristics (Adams et al., 2015; Kitayama et al., 2000; Oishi, 2000). In contrast, people in collectivistic cultures experience an interdependent self that is primarily a part of relationships and that aspires to tame individual desires in favour of the group (Kitayama et al., 2000). Hegemonic psychological theories about personal growth emerged in an individualistic culture. For that reason, they may not be consistent with how people in collectivistic cultures conceptualise personal growth (Adams et al., 2015).

Research has explored conceptualisations of personal growth in the collectivistic cultures of East Asia and Europe (e.g., Dominick & Taku, 2019), but not beyond these regions (Suh & Oishi, 2004). Ghana is a country in Sub-Saharan Africa with a collectivistic culture (15 on the Individualism index; Hofstede Insights, 2019). Because of this, Ghanaian conceptualisations of personal growth are also likely to differ from hegemonic psychological theories.

To Ghanaians, religion and life are closely intertwined: The one cannot exist without the other (Freeman, 2016; Heaton et al., 2009; Pokimica et al., 2012). Religion is the organising principle of Ghanaian thinking, culture and identity, politics, and economics, and social networks are made possible by religion (Aboagye-Mensah, 1994; Heaton et al., 2009). Indeed, Addai et al. (2014) found higher levels of subjective well-being in religiously active Ghanaians compared to people who were not religiously active. The close relationship between religion and life in Ghana has been termed “holistic” (Pokimica et al., 2012). For this reason, the study of Ghanaian conceptualisations of personal growth must take religion into account.

A large majority of Ghanaians are Christians (71.2%; Ghana Statistical Service, 2012). In recent decades, Charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity have been growing in popularity in Ghana. These Charismatic and Pentecostal churches promote rituals and practices consistent with an experience of an independent self that is more common in WEIRD countries (Omenyo, 2011; Salter & Adams, 2012; Van Dijk, 2016). More specifically, Charismatic and Pentecostal churches preach the prosperity gospel that emphasises redemption and prosperity on an individual level (Van Dijk, 2002). In contrast, the strands of Christianity that have existed for centuries in Ghana (introduced during colonial times by missionaries) are embedded in traditional Ghanaian collectivistic culture. These strands of Christianity that are traditional to Ghana are referred to as “Orthodox”. The Ghanaian use of the term “Orthodox Christianity” thus deviates from the Western use, as in the Ghanaian context it refers to strands of Christianity that include Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Methodists (Amanor, 2009; Assimeng, 2010).

The Orthodox Christian churches play important societal roles in Ghana. Since the 1980s and onwards, they have protected human rights and freedom of the press against military forces (Yirenkyi, 2000). Also, in a country without basic social welfare and insurance, they have stepped in and provided health care and education (Yirenkyi, 1999). Church leaders are often the primary mental health providers to their parishioners (Osei-Tutu et al., 2020). They are respected as moral authorities who advice on socially appropriate actions to remedy stressful life problems (Osei-Tutu et al., 2020).

Orthodox Christians often have relatively high socioeconomic status (Heaton et al., 2009). Their churches give services in English and encourage Bible literacy as well as secular education (Heaton et al., 2009). They also tend to promote strict moral codes regarding sexuality and family, resulting in smaller families than people belonging to other religious denominations (e.g., Muslims or traditional religion; Heaton et al., 2009).

The Orthodox Christian churches in Ghana share theology and organisation with their Western counterparts. However, religious tolerance is very high in Ghana, and Ghanaians borrow freely from many different religions. For example, weddings can sometimes take place twice – first in a church and then again in a traditional setting – and services in Orthodox Christian Churches may include charismatic influences (Heaton et al., 2009).

Because Orthodox Christian Ghanaians are embedded in traditional Ghanaian collectivistic culture, they experience an interdependent self (Meyer, 2004; Omenyo, 2011; Salter & Adams, 2012). Consequently, they value social harmony and fulfilment of social obligations to kin, employers, and God (Osei-Tutu et al., 2020; Suh & Oishi, 2004), reciprocity, generosity, and moderation (Asamoah-Gyadu, 2005; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Wilson Fadiji et al., 2019). For this reason, it is likely that Orthodox Christian Ghanaians conceptualise personal growth differently than hegemonic psychological theories.

The aim of the current study was to explore how Orthodox Christian Ghanaians conceptualise personal growth. A qualitative approach was chosen to reach detailed phenomenological data of every-day and religious experiences of the participants (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Method

Setting, participants and recruiting

The study included 12 participants (six females and six males) who were between 18 and 31 years old. They were all members of Orthodox Christian groups in Ghana: Catholic (N = 4), Anglican (N = 4), Methodists (N = 2) and Presbyterian (N = 2). By including participants from different orthodox groups, we increased the variability and representativeness of our sample (Cf. “theoretical sampling”).

The participants were recruited through university organisations at the University of Ghana (Cf. “convenience sampling”). We chose university students to guarantee that all were fluent in English (English is the official language of instruction at all educational levels in Ghana). Executives at the respective church-organisations passed on contact information to people interested in participating. Those persons could also pass on contact information to other people that they thought would be interested in participating (Cf. “snowball sampling”).

All participants were undergraduate students in different departments, including political science, psychology, accounting, business, public health, and food engineering. The two participants from the psychology department were undergraduates and therefore considered not to be too knowledgeable in the field to cause a bias. Four of the participants had executive or leadership roles in their religious communities. Since research has shown that well-being is different across ethnic groups in Ghana (Addai et al., 2014) we made sure to include participants from different ethnic groups such as the Akan, Ewe, Ga, and Frafra.

The interviews

The interviews were conducted as part of a bigger project investigating conceptions of key dimensions of psychological well-being constructs such as personal growth and autonomy. We collected data in the spring 2019 through individual interviews lasting on average 30–40 min. Both ER and FN attended all interviews, apart from one, alternating between being interviewer and observer across interviews. The observer could ask questions at the end of the interview. Since the participants were fluent in English, interviews were conducted in English rather than with a translator. In this way, we averted the risk of information getting lost in translation.

The interviews were semi-structured and the questions were open ended to facilitate reflection. No previous theoretical definitions of personal growth were given to the participants. Instead, the interviews focused on what personal growth meant to the participants, what they did to achieve personal growth, and how it was expressed in their everyday life (including religious activities). Follow-up questions focused on specific events. The areas to be covered in the interviews were deliberately chosen to openly explore the experience of personal growth in a Ghanaian setting, given the lack of previous research on the topic.

Data analysis

The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed with Inductive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). In this type of analysis, the researchers look for patterns in the participants’ narratives (i.e., themes) (Braun & Clarke, 2006). We chose an inductive data-driven approach to minimise the risk of preconceptions interfering with the interpretation of the data.

We followed the steps recommended by Braun and Clarke (2006). In the first step, transcriptions were sorted into quotations (about 1800) that were given names (“codes”) using formulations that were as close to the participants’ own wordings as possible. For example, the quotation “So the more you grow, that means that now you have knowledge about a lot of things”, was assigned the code “get knowledge”. In the second step, the quotations were placed into groups (“code groups”; about 160) based on similarity. ER and FN did this step together for the first four interviews and then worked separately, still communicating during the entire process to keep a similar approach. At the third step, the code groups were further sorted into 13 sub-themes, also based on similarity. From this step and forward everything was done jointly by ER and FN because these steps require more reflection and interpretation from the researchers. At the fourth step, the sub-themes were grouped into three main categories. For example, the sub-themes of personal growth “relational growth”, “social learning”, and “people need each other”, were sorted into the main category “the value of relationships”. At this point, we determined that we had reached theoretical saturation (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) because there was no need for more themes.

The researcher's preconceptions

Measures to counteract bias included conducting interviews explorative with both two first authors present and doing the analysis in an inductive way. ER and FN were at the time of the study master's students in psychology at Örebro University in Sweden. None of them had previously been involved in the field of psychological well-being and did not read previous research until having completed the analysis. They had both grown up as atheists but been surrounded by Swedish Christian values and practices. Neither had previously visited Ghana. Since people are often oblivious to phenomena in their own culture, coming from the outside in this way can be a strength when studying cultural phenomena (Hegelund, 2005). The research process was supervised by AO-T, JC, and JN. AO-T is a PhD-level counselling psychologist and a Christian who has lived most of her life in Ghana. JN and JC are Swedish PhD-level psychologists with experience from qualitative research, but with no previous experience from research on well-being or cross-cultural psychology. Both have grown up as atheists.

Ethical considerations

The study was ethically approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority (registration number: 2019-01926), and by the Ethics Committee for the Humanities (ECH) at the University of Ghana (registration number: ECH 046/18-19). All participants were informed of the aim of the study, that they were guaranteed confidentiality, and that they had a right to withdraw from the study if they wished.

Result

The analysis resulted in three main categories that expressed the values that participants thought constituted personal growth.

Main category 1: the value of relationships

The participants said that relationships with family as well as with friends and acquaintances were key to personal growth. They especially valued relationships with people of higher social standing, such as business executives and lecturers. Above all, the relationship with God was valued as most important to personal growth.

The participants said that relationships with other people helped them grow by providing career opportunities, knowledge and skills, and correcting them when they did not follow social conventions. They thought their relationship with God helped them grow in similar ways: God provided them with guidance in life, provided motivation for evolving, and was believed to reward them with good outcomes. With expressions such as “when you are able to achieve your dreams, it is God that made it come to pass” and “without his strength and his grace we cannot do what we have planned to do”, participants stressed the importance that God had to their personal growth. These expressions crediting God tended to leave out personal efforts made towards success.

The participants also said that an important part of personal growth was learning to adapt to their social environment. The participants wanted to use other people as a frame of reference as to what was desirable and stressed that other people provided them with valuable feedback, and they felt that it was important to consider others’ opinions, also if it involved criticism and correction.

This also included following conventions in church. They saw church as an arena where personality and emotionality could grow, and experienced that they developed their relationship with God there. They had to learn interpersonal skills to navigate the social world, and to avoid conflicts even if it meant holding back their own opinions. For this reason, emotional control was thought to be important. One participant spoke of anger: “If you are a person who is quick-tempered, you can set a goal or you can try to achieve a slow tempered person”. One participant described the importance of adapting to social conventions in this way:

And you are not being a good member of society because in our part of the world, we cherish society. We cherish relations with family, with the community, so you are not being a good member of the community or the society because, you’ve not grown so, maybe you are not. You can't contribute more than you have contributed. Because you are limited in whatever you know or whatever aspects, you’ve still remained the same. So [you] may not be able to give more as you want to or as expected to.

Caring about other people was imperative. To be accommodating as a person was highlighted, both as an attribute with its own value and as making you a better leader and fellow human. Helping others could be valuable for its own sake and gave them a sense of satisfaction. One participant expressed the link between personal growth and relationships in this way:

I believe that the moment you make a friend, there should be growth inside it. For example, I never knew, today I met you, I knew your name, and you knew my name. The next step is where do I come from, where do you come from. We know all that. The next thing is we come to understand the basic things about ourselves, what you like, what you don't like. What are the things you expect me to do, what are things you don't expect me to be doing, all of that. You see if you are able to grow and because of that you know, you became to move together. You will be the best of friends.

They nurtured their relationship with God by taking time to pray, read the Bible, attend religious events, God was thanked and credited when good things or growth occurred, and living by their Christian values. One participant described how his efforts to deepen his relationship with God in this way:

I don't think I’ve prayed enough as a Christian, qualifying as a Christian in the beginning. But I have tried, I am trying to catch up to read my bible or like some of the things that are expected of me if I say I’m a Christian.

Although relationships were important, the participants also saw independence as a goal of personal growth. They wanted to be able to resist bad influence such as violent movies or destructive friends and to be able to form their own opinions. They noticed that people are different, and this was important because it made them realise that there are multiple ways of doing things. It was also thought to be important to overcome being shy because this held them back. One participant said: “Until here [coming to the University] I realized that no, you can't always be in your shell and be there, you need to move out and start speaking to people”. They stressed wealth to gain independence. One participant said it was necessary to develop financial skills to gain independence from her parents: “But you have to show that you can get things for yourself. You do not have to depend, leaning on them for everything. So with that I learned how to save and do things for myself”.

Main category 2: the value of effort

The participants described personal growth as a naturally occurring process that was integral to normal development. Ultimately, this process was thought to be granted by the grace of God. However, the participants believed that there were frequent obstacles to growth, such as lack of money. For this reason, growth had to be actively pursued. They said that it was not possible to just sit around and wait for growth to happen. Rather, it requires effort, and people were expected to take responsibility for their own growth. Still, God was thought to be the enabler of growth also in those circumstances, and should be properly praised and thanked.

To not actively pursue growth was equivalent to wasting time and was associated with negative emotions such as “feeling bad” or “low”. In contrast, the active pursuit of personal growth was felt as intrinsically rewarding, and was associated with feelings of fulfilment, peace, and joy. For example, learning skills like playing the piano was made for the sole reason that it was fun and pleasurable. One participant said that: “Being fulfilled is, you are feeling self-rewarded over what you have been able to achieve… You don't need anybody to reward you, but you sit down and you know that ‘I have put in my best’”. The participants said that trying hard and putting in their best made them feel proud about themselves, independent of whether they had achieved the intended outcome. Trying hard boosted their confidence, which enabled them “to go higher in education”, and to be more assured about their choices, to stand up for themselves and to dare to express their opinions.

Improving their relationship to God was also thought to require effort. The participants said that when they were children, the spiritual aspects of personal growth was supervised and guided by their parents. Now they felt that they took more responsibility for it themselves and looked for guidance from people in the church. The active pursuit of growth in the spiritual sense involved practices such as taking more time to pray, reading the bible, attending more religious events. The primary arena for these aspects of personal growth was church, but the participants also emphasised that they strived to follow their Christian values in their everyday lives, and “do the will of God”.

The participants stressed that to overcome obstacles, they had to believe in themselves, be confident, and deliberately push themselves. One participant said that it was important not to “demean yourself” by not daring to take on challenges because of fear. They also said that growth requires planning, and they had to take the necessary steps and invest resources to excel at what they had decided to pursue. Growth was expected to take time and should not be rushed. Rather, it was thought to require patience. One participant described it with a metaphor: “I mean if you are building, say, a wall. You could decide to build a wall in one day, but… You take one day at a time. You can't get growth at a go”. It was also important to practice consistently and not to lose focus. One participant said that “ … personal growth has to do with consistency, and it has to do with effort. You don't just sit there and expect like, growth to come”. Unfortunately, sometimes success is not possible. The participants stressed the need to accept things that they cannot control, and that they are not able to affect or avoid some failures.

Main category 3: the value of success

The participants said that personal growth should result in observable results. One participant said: “Usually I mean, what will determine your growth is when you are seeing results. When you are seeing that, indeed you have done something”. In general, participants valued outcomes that provided opportunities and improved the material conditions needed to lead a comfortable life. Money was important. One participant said that “if you are not economically sound, no matter how intelligent you are you can’t attain a certain [social] height because you need money to take you there”. The participants also valued high academic grades. One participant commented on how he felt when he got to knew that he had received the highest grades:

I was … was surprised that I achieved it. That's how I actually felt. In as much as that we are all praying, we are all hoping that we get, those good grades. I actually was surprised I got it because I didn't think I could get it. Because of … because of the process I was going through back in school. Cause it felt overwhelming. It felt like I couldn't take it alone. But then I was able to sort … I was actually very surprised and happy at the same time so it was basically mixed feelings. I was surprised I got such a grade and I was extremely happy that all my hard work payed off.

Knowledge was thought to be important also aside from academic grades, partly because it created more opportunities. The participants gained knowledge through reading books, watching movies, attending programmes, and listening to sermons. One participant expressed it in this way

To read more, and I get to explore so many things, so if there is something I hear of and don't know about make sure I get to know. At any possible means, to get to know. And then ask more questions … if I’m not knowledgeable enough to meet the things that come my way, it wouldn't help me.

To learn by experience was important, and participants achieved this especially through taking up leadership roles. One participant expressed the need for experience to grow in this way: “Probably maybe because of my [international] travels I’ve been able to understand, a lot more than actually what I used to, before I travelled. So, it's like, there's a lot more outside of maybe what you know”.

Self-reflection and insight were seen as important to reach the desired outcomes. It was important to use self-analysing, to know who you are, and what you want. This helped participants to strategically take on growth in ways that suited them. Participants emphasised the importance of sitting down to reflect on situations, which were more effective than only experiencing situations without self-reflection. The participants said that it was important to set, evaluate, and achieve goals to grow. The process of evaluating told them whether they were on the right track towards achieving their goal. Because achieving goals were equated to growing, goals became a way of assessing the process of growth. If they made mistakes they wanted to learn from them.

Discussion

The present study showed that Ghanaian Orthodox Christians’ conceptualisation of personal growth was captured by the values of relationships, effort, and success. The participants wanted material success, and they acknowledged that this takes effort. Relationships were facilitating their ambitions, and for that reason learning to adapt to social norms was important. Most important of all was their relationship to God.

The value of relationships

The first value of personal growth, that of relationships, is consistent with the experience of an interdependent self (Kitayama et al., 2000). Previous studies on people in other collectivistic cultures also showed conceptualisations of personal growth with strong emphasis on relationships (e.g., Dominick & Taku, 2019). Because Ghanaian Orthodox Christians have strong ties to the collectivistic culture that is indigenous to Ghana, this finding was expected (Hofstede, 2019; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Meyer, 2004; Omenyo, 2011; Salter & Adams, 2012).

Previous studies have shown that relationships are important in the religious thinking of Ghanaian Orthodox Christians (Osei-Tutu et al., 2020; Suh & Oishi, 2004). However, this study showed that the relationship to God was also an aspect of how Ghanaian Orthodox Christians conceptualise personal growth. The relationship to God was thought of in similar terms as relationships to other people. In this sense, God was an enabler of good outcomes in life. However, the relationship with God stood out as especially important. Also, the participants became part of a collective through religious activities, which is also consistent with previous studies (Markus, 2017; Van Dijk, 2016; Wink & Dillon, 2003).

The participants grew by learning how to understand others and to get along with them. This also involved growing by suppressing individual wishes to maintain positive relationships. Although consistent with previous research on values and attitudes of Orthodox Christian Ghanaians (Asamoah-Gyadu, 2005; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Osei-Tutu et al., 2020; Suh & Oishi, 2004; Wilson Fadiji et al., 2019), this is the first time suppressing individual wishes is conceptualised as personal growth. This suppression of individual wishes contrasts to hegemonic psychological theories of personal growth (e.g., Ryff 1989). Those theories rather encourage people to strive to reach their own potentials as unique individuals. Rogers (1961) suggested that “unconditional positive regard” was needed to reach this potential. In contrast, our participants experienced punitive attitudes from other people, which they did not mind.

The value of relationships may constitute a conceptualisation of personal growth that differ qualitatively from hegemonic psychological theories. If so, traditional measures of mental health that include personal growth would lack validity in the Ghanaian context. However, the value of relationships could also reflect the need of individuals in collectivistic cultures to cope with strong social control. Indeed, our participants did at times reveal a wish for more independence, in line with what is suggested by hegemonic psychological theories. If so, the value of people may imply compromised mental health, in line with existing measures of well-being in Ghana (Dzokoto et al., 2019). This question should be explored in future studies.

The values of success and effort

On a first glance, the values of effort and success are consistent with the experience of an independent self, typical of individualistic cultures. (Adams et al., 2015; Kitayama et al., 2000; Oishi, 2000). Because our participants were university students, they are likely to have been more exposed to individualistic cultures than other Ghanaians. Indeed, previous research has shown that level of education can influence conceptualisations of personal growth (Addai et al., 2014; Kangmennaang & Elliott, 2018; Pokimica et al., 2012). It is also possible that the value of success and effort was influenced by the prosperity gospel that sometimes also appear in Orthodox Christian Churches (Heaton et al., 2009). Still, it seemed that the values of success and effort were strongly related to the participants’ desire to live up to social expectations, rather than a desire to fulfil their own potential. In this way, also these values seemed consistent with an interdependent view of the self.

The participants wanted to develop and maintain their relationship with God, and this demanded effort. To do this, they prayed, made sure to participate in church activities, and lived by their Christian values in their every-day life. Also outside of the religious context, the participants invested time and energy in their pursuits. Still, when they researched their set goals, God was believed to have been the enabler, despite all their efforts.

The participants mainly conceptualised success in concrete terms, such as improving skills and earning money, rather than in terms of the existential dimensions that are the focus of hegemonic theories of personal growth. Although spiritual development was emphasised (i.e., developing the relationship with God), this was also expected to lead to material outcomes. It is possible that this focus on material needs is an effect of the relatively weak Ghanaian economic development and social protection network (McCauley, 2014).

Conclusions

Ghanaian Orthodox Christians' conceptualisation of personal growth differs from those in hegemonic psychological theories by assuming an interdependent self and focusing on concrete rather than existential dimensions. Unlike secular contexts, the relationship to God stood out as an especially important relationship that enables good outcomes. Further theoretical and empirical work (e.g., scale development) should consider these differences. More specifically, when attempts are made to use psychometrics to measure personal growth in a Ghanaian context, items should reflect the aspects uncovered in the present study.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Adjeiwa Affram for assistance with the data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Volkswagen Foundation (grant number 94667).