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Writing Research Papers

• Writing a Literature Review

When writing a research paper on a specific topic, you will often need to include an overview of any prior research that has been conducted on that topic.  For example, if your research paper is describing an experiment on fear conditioning, then you will probably need to provide an overview of prior research on fear conditioning.  That overview is typically known as a literature review.  

Please note that a full-length literature review article may be suitable for fulfilling the requirements for the Psychology B.S. Degree Research Paper .  For further details, please check with your faculty advisor.

Different Types of Literature Reviews

Literature reviews come in many forms.  They can be part of a research paper, for example as part of the Introduction section.  They can be one chapter of a doctoral dissertation.  Literature reviews can also “stand alone” as separate articles by themselves.  For instance, some journals such as Annual Review of Psychology , Psychological Bulletin , and others typically publish full-length review articles.  Similarly, in courses at UCSD, you may be asked to write a research paper that is itself a literature review (such as, with an instructor’s permission, in fulfillment of the B.S. Degree Research Paper requirement). Alternatively, you may be expected to include a literature review as part of a larger research paper (such as part of an Honors Thesis). 

Literature reviews can be written using a variety of different styles.  These may differ in the way prior research is reviewed as well as the way in which the literature review is organized.  Examples of stylistic variations in literature reviews include: 

• Summarization of prior work vs. critical evaluation. In some cases, prior research is simply described and summarized; in other cases, the writer compares, contrasts, and may even critique prior research (for example, discusses their strengths and weaknesses).
• Chronological vs. categorical and other types of organization. In some cases, the literature review begins with the oldest research and advances until it concludes with the latest research.  In other cases, research is discussed by category (such as in groupings of closely related studies) without regard for chronological order.  In yet other cases, research is discussed in terms of opposing views (such as when different research studies or researchers disagree with one another).

Overall, all literature reviews, whether they are written as a part of a larger work or as separate articles unto themselves, have a common feature: they do not present new research; rather, they provide an overview of prior research on a specific topic . 

How to Write a Literature Review

When writing a literature review, it can be helpful to rely on the following steps.  Please note that these procedures are not necessarily only for writing a literature review that becomes part of a larger article; they can also be used for writing a full-length article that is itself a literature review (although such reviews are typically more detailed and exhaustive; for more information please refer to the Further Resources section of this page).

Steps for Writing a Literature Review

1. Identify and define the topic that you will be reviewing.

The topic, which is commonly a research question (or problem) of some kind, needs to be identified and defined as clearly as possible.  You need to have an idea of what you will be reviewing in order to effectively search for references and to write a coherent summary of the research on it.  At this stage it can be helpful to write down a description of the research question, area, or topic that you will be reviewing, as well as to identify any keywords that you will be using to search for relevant research.

2. Conduct a literature search.

Use a range of keywords to search databases such as PsycINFO and any others that may contain relevant articles.  You should focus on peer-reviewed, scholarly articles.  Published books may also be helpful, but keep in mind that peer-reviewed articles are widely considered to be the “gold standard” of scientific research.  Read through titles and abstracts, select and obtain articles (that is, download, copy, or print them out), and save your searches as needed.  For more information about this step, please see the Using Databases and Finding Scholarly References section of this website.

3. Read through the research that you have found and take notes.

Absorb as much information as you can.  Read through the articles and books that you have found, and as you do, take notes.  The notes should include anything that will be helpful in advancing your own thinking about the topic and in helping you write the literature review (such as key points, ideas, or even page numbers that index key information).  Some references may turn out to be more helpful than others; you may notice patterns or striking contrasts between different sources ; and some sources may refer to yet other sources of potential interest.  This is often the most time-consuming part of the review process.  However, it is also where you get to learn about the topic in great detail.  For more details about taking notes, please see the “Reading Sources and Taking Notes” section of the Finding Scholarly References page of this website.

4. Organize your notes and thoughts; create an outline.

At this stage, you are close to writing the review itself.  However, it is often helpful to first reflect on all the reading that you have done.  What patterns stand out?  Do the different sources converge on a consensus?  Or not?  What unresolved questions still remain?  You should look over your notes (it may also be helpful to reorganize them), and as you do, to think about how you will present this research in your literature review.  Are you going to summarize or critically evaluate?  Are you going to use a chronological or other type of organizational structure?  It can also be helpful to create an outline of how your literature review will be structured.

5. Write the literature review itself and edit and revise as needed.

The final stage involves writing.  When writing, keep in mind that literature reviews are generally characterized by a summary style in which prior research is described sufficiently to explain critical findings but does not include a high level of detail (if readers want to learn about all the specific details of a study, then they can look up the references that you cite and read the original articles themselves).  However, the degree of emphasis that is given to individual studies may vary (more or less detail may be warranted depending on how critical or unique a given study was).   After you have written a first draft, you should read it carefully and then edit and revise as needed.  You may need to repeat this process more than once.  It may be helpful to have another person read through your draft(s) and provide feedback.

6. Incorporate the literature review into your research paper draft.

After the literature review is complete, you should incorporate it into your research paper (if you are writing the review as one component of a larger paper).  Depending on the stage at which your paper is at, this may involve merging your literature review into a partially complete Introduction section, writing the rest of the paper around the literature review, or other processes.

Further Tips for Writing a Literature Review

Full-length literature reviews

• Many full-length literature review articles use a three-part structure: Introduction (where the topic is identified and any trends or major problems in the literature are introduced), Body (where the studies that comprise the literature on that topic are discussed), and Discussion or Conclusion (where major patterns and points are discussed and the general state of what is known about the topic is summarized)

Literature reviews as part of a larger paper

• An “express method” of writing a literature review for a research paper is as follows: first, write a one paragraph description of each article that you read. Second, choose how you will order all the paragraphs and combine them in one document.  Third, add transitions between the paragraphs, as well as an introductory and concluding paragraph. 1
• A literature review that is part of a larger research paper typically does not have to be exhaustive. Rather, it should contain most or all of the significant studies about a research topic but not tangential or loosely related ones. 2   Generally, literature reviews should be sufficient for the reader to understand the major issues and key findings about a research topic.  You may however need to confer with your instructor or editor to determine how comprehensive you need to be.

Benefits of Literature Reviews

By summarizing prior research on a topic, literature reviews have multiple benefits.  These include:

• Literature reviews help readers understand what is known about a topic without having to find and read through multiple sources.
• Literature reviews help “set the stage” for later reading about new research on a given topic (such as if they are placed in the Introduction of a larger research paper). In other words, they provide helpful background and context.
• Literature reviews can also help the writer learn about a given topic while in the process of preparing the review itself. In the act of research and writing the literature review, the writer gains expertise on the topic .

Downloadable Resources

• How to Write APA Style Research Papers (a comprehensive guide) [ PDF ]
• Tips for Writing APA Style Research Papers (a brief summary) [ PDF ]
• Example APA Style Research Paper (for B.S. Degree – literature review) [ PDF ]

Further Resources

How-To Videos     

• Writing Research Paper Videos
• UCSD Library Psychology Research Guide: Literature Reviews

External Resources

• Developing and Writing a Literature Review from N Carolina A&T State University
• Example of a Short Literature Review from York College CUNY
• How to Write a Review of Literature from UW-Madison
• Writing a Literature Review from UC Santa Cruz  
• Pautasso, M. (2013). Ten Simple Rules for Writing a Literature Review. PLoS Computational Biology, 9 (7), e1003149. doi : 1371/journal.pcbi.1003149

1 Ashton, W. Writing a short literature review . [PDF]     

2 carver, l. (2014).  writing the research paper [workshop]. , prepared by s. c. pan for ucsd psychology.

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• Tips for Searching for Articles
• Tips for Writing a Literature Review

What is a literature review?

Conducting a literature review, organizing a literature review, writing a literature review, helpful book.

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A  literature review  is a compilation of the works published in a particular field of study or line of research, usually over a specific period of time, in the form of an in-depth, critical bibliographic essay or annotated list in which attention is drawn to the most significant works.

• Summarizes and analyzes previous research relevant to a topic
• Includes scholarly books and articles published in academic journals
• Can be an specific scholarly paper or a section in a research paper

The objective of a Literature Review is to find previous published scholarly works relevant to an specific topic

• Help gather ideas or information
• Keep up to date in current trends and findings
• Help develop new questions

A literature review is important because it:

• Explains the background of research on a topic
• Demonstrates why a topic is significant to a subject area
• Helps focus your own research questions or problems
• Discovers relationships between research studies/ideas
• Suggests unexplored ideas or populations
• Identifies major themes, concepts, and researchers on a topic
• Tests assumptions; may help counter preconceived ideas and remove unconscious bias
• Identifies critical gaps, points of disagreement, or potentially flawed methodology or theoretical approaches

Source: "What is a Literature Review?", Old Dominion University,  https://guides.lib.odu.edu/c.php?g=966167&p=6980532

1. Choose a topic. Define your research question. 

Your literature review should be guided by a central research question. It represents background and research developments related to a specific research question, interpreted, and analyzed by you in a synthesized way. 

• Make sure your research question is not too broad or too narrow.
• Write down terms that are related to your question for they will be useful for searches later. 

2. Decide on the scope of your review. 

How many studies do you need to look at? How comprehensive should it be? How many years should it cover? 

• This may depend on your assignment.
• Consider these things when planning your time for research. 

3. Select the databases you will use to conduct your searches. 

• By Research Guide 

4. Conduct your searches and find the literature. 

• Review the abstracts carefully - this will save you time!
• Many databases will have a search history tab for you to return to for later.
• Use bibliographies and references of research studies to locate others.
• Use citation management software such as Zotero to keep track of your research citations. 

5. Review the literature. 

Some questions to help you analyze the research: 

• What was the research question you are reviewing? What are the authors trying to discover? 
• Was the research funded by a source that could influence the findings? 
• What were the research methodologies? Analyze the literature review, samples and variables used, results, and conclusions. Does the research seem complete? Could it have been conducted more soundly? What further questions does it raise? 
• If there are conflicted studies, why do you think that is? 
• How are the authors viewed in the field? Are they experts or novices? Has the study been cited? 

Source: "Literature Review", University of West Florida,  https://libguides.uwf.edu/c.php?g=215113&p=5139469

A literature review is not a summary of the sources but a synthesis of the sources. It is made up of the topics the sources are discussing. Each section of the review is focused on a topic, and the relevant sources are discussed within the context of that topic. 

1. Select the most relevant material from the sources

• Could be material that answers the question directly
• Extract as a direct quote or paraphrase 

2. Arrange that material so you can focus on it apart from the source text itself

• You are now working with fewer words/passages
• Material is all in one place

3. Group similar points, themes, or topics together and label them 

• The labels describe the points, themes, or topics that are the backbone of your paper’s structure

4. Order those points, themes, or topics as you will discuss them in the paper, and turn the labels into actual assertions

• A sentence that makes a point that is directly related to your research question or thesis 

This is now the outline for your literature review. 

Source: "Organizing a Review of the Literature – The Basics", George Mason University Writing Center,  https://writingcenter.gmu.edu/writing-resources/research-based-writing/organizing-literature-reviews-the-basics

• Literature Review Matrix Here is a template on how people tend to organize their thoughts. The matrix template is a good way to write out the key parts of each article and take notes. Downloads as an XLSX file.

The most common way that literature reviews are organized is by theme or author. Find a general pattern of structure for the review. When organizing the review, consider the following: 

• the methodology 
• the quality of the findings or conclusions
• major strengths and weaknesses
• any other important information

Writing Tips: 

• Be selective - Select only the most important points in each source to highlight in the review. It should directly relate to the review's focus.
• Use quotes sparingly.
• Keep your own voice - Your voice (the writer's) should remain front and center. .   
• Aim for one key figure/table per section to illustrate complex content, summarize a large body of relevant data, or describe the order of a process
• Legend below image/figure and above table and always refer to them in text 

Source: "Composing your Literature Review", Florida A&M University,  https://library.famu.edu/c.php?g=577356&p=3982811

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Conducting Literature Reviews

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The APA definition of a literature review (from http://www.apa.org/databases/training/method-values.html ):

 Survey of previously published literature on a particular topic to define and clarify a particular problem; summarize previous investigations; and to identify relations, contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies in the literature, and suggest the next step in solving the problem.

 Literature Reviews should:

• Key concepts that are being researched
• The areas that are ripe for more research—where the gaps and inconsistencies in the literature are
• A critical analysis of research that has been previously conducted
• Will include primary and secondary research
• Be selective—you’ll review many sources, so pick the most important parts of the articles/books.
• Introduction: Provides an overview of your topic, including the major problems and issues that have been studied.
• Discussion of Methodologies:   If there are different types of studies conducted, identifying what types of studies have been conducted is often provided.
• Identification and Discussion of Studies: Provide overview of major studies conducted, and if there have been follow-up studies, identify whether this has supported or disproved results from prior studies.
• Identification of Themes in Literature: If there has been different themes in the literature, these are also discussed in literature reviews.   For example, if you were writing a review of treatment of OCD, cognitive-behavioral therapy and drug therapy would be themes to discuss.
• Conclusion/Discussion—Summarize what you’ve found in your review of literature, and identify areas in need of further research or gaps in the literature.

Because literature reviews are a major part of research in psychology, Psycinfo allows you to easily limit to literature reviews.  In the advanced search screen, you can select "literature review" as the methodology.

Now all you'll need to do is enter your search terms, and your results should show you many literature reviews conducted by professionals on your topic.

When you find an literature review article that is relevant to your topic, you should look at who the authors cite and who is citing the author, so that you can begin to use their research to help you locate sources and conduct your own literature review.  The best way to do that is to use the "Cited References" and "Times Cited" links in Psycinfo, which is pictured below.

This article on procrastination has 423 references, and 48 other articles in psycinfo are citing this literature review.  And, the citations are either available in full text or to request through ILL.  Check out  the article "The Nature of Procrastination" to see how these features work.

By searching for existing literature reviews, and then using the references of those literature reviews to begin your own literature search, you can efficiently gather the best research on a topic.  You'll want to keep in mind that you'll need to summarize and analyze the articles you read, and won't be able to use every single article you choose.

You can use the search box below to get started.

Adelphi Library's tutorial, Conducting a Literature Review in Education and the Behavioral Sciences covers how to gather sources from library databases for your literature review.

The University of Toronto also provides "A Few Tips on Conducting a Literature Review" that offers some good advice and questions to ask when conducting a literature review.

Purdue University's Online Writing Lab (OWL) has several resources that discuss literature reviews: 

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/666/01/

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/994/04/   (for grad students, but is still offers some good tips and advice for anyone writing a literature review)

Journal articles (covers more than 1,700 periodicals), chapters, books, dissertations and reports on psychology and related fields.

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Writing a Literature Review

What is a literature review.

• Research Topic | Research Questions
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Table of Contents

• What is a literature review?
• How is a literature review different from a research article?
• The two purposes: describe/compare and evaluate
• Getting started Select a topic and gather articles
• Choose a current, well-studied, specific topic
• Search the research literature
• Read the articles
• Write the literature review
• Structure How to proceed: describe, compare, evaluate

Literature reviews survey research on a particular area or topic in psychology. Their main purpose is to knit together theories and results from multiple studies to give an overview of a field of research.

How is a Literature Review Different from a Research Article?

Research articles:

• are empirical articles that describe one or several related studies on a specific, quantitative, testable research question
• are typically organized into four text sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion

The Introduction of a research article includes a condensed literature review. Its purpose is to describe what is known about the area of study, with the goal of giving the context and rationale for the study itself. Published literature reviews are called review articles. Review articles emphasize interpretation. By surveying the key studies done in a certain research area, a review article interprets how each line of research supports or fails to support a theory. Unlike a research article, which is quite specific, a review article tells a more general story of an area of research by describing, comparing, and evaluating the key theories and main evidence in that area.

The Two Purposes of a Literature Review

Your review has two purposes:

(1) to describe and compare studies in a specific area of research and

(2) to evaluate those studies. Both purposes are vital: a thorough summary and comparison of the current research is necessary before you can build a strong evaluative argument about the theories tested.

Getting Started

(1) Select a research topic and identify relevant articles.

(2) Read the articles until you understand what about them is relevant to your review.

(3) Digest the articles: Understand the main points well enough to talk about them.

(4) Write the review, keeping in mind your two purposes: to describe and compare, and to evaluate.

SELECT A TOPIC AND COLLECT ARTICLES

Choose a current, well-studied, specific topic.

Pick a topic that interests you. If you're interested in a subject, you're likely to already know something about it. Your interest will help you to choose meaningful articles, making your paper more fun both to write and to read. The topic should be both current and well studied. Your goal is to describe and evaluate recent findings in a specific area of research, so pick a topic that you find in current research journals. Find an area that is well defined and well studied, meaning that several research groups are studying the topic and have approached it from different perspectives. If all the articles you find are from the same research group (i.e., the same authors), broaden your topic or use more general search terms.

You may need to narrow your topic. The subject of a short literature review must be specific enough, yet have sufficient literature on the subject, for you to cover it in depth. A broad topic will yield thousands of articles, which is impossible to survey meaningfully. If you are drowning in articles, or each article you find seems to be about a completely different aspect of the subject, narrow your topic. Choose one article that interests to you and focus on the specific question investigated. For example, a search for ‘teenage alcohol use’ will flood you with articles, but searching for ‘teenage alcohol use and criminal behavior’ will yield both fewer and more focused articles.

You may need to broaden your topic. You need enough articles on your topic for a thorough review of the research. If you’re unable to find much literature on your topic, or if you find articles you want that are not easy to find online, broaden your topic. What’s a more general way to ask your question of interest? For example, if you’re having a hard time finding articles on ‘discrimination against Asian-American women in STEM fields,’ broaden your topic (e.g., ‘academic discrimination against Asian-American women’ or ‘discrimination against women in STEM.’)

Consider several topics, and keep an open mind. Don't fall in love with a topic before you find how much research has been done in that area. By exploring different topics, you may discover something that is newly exciting to you!

Search the Research Literature

Do a preliminary search. Use online databases to search the research literature. If you don’t know how to search online databases, ask your instructor or reference librarian. Reference librarians are invaluable!

Search for helpful articles. Find one or more pivotal articles that can be a foundation for your paper. A pivotal article may be exceptionally well written, contain particularly valuable citations, or clarify relationships between different but related lines of research. Two sources of such articles in psychology are:

• Psychological Bulletin •
• Current Directions in Psychological Science (published by the American Psychological Society) has general, short articles written by scientists who have published a lot in their research area

How many articles? Although published review articles may cite more than 100 articles, literature reviews for courses are often shorter because they present only highlights of a research area and are not exhaustive. A short literature review may survey 7-12 research articles and be about 10-15 pages long. For course paper guidelines, ask your instructor.

Choose representative articles, not just the first ones you find. This consideration is more important than the length of your review.

Choose readable articles. Some research areas are harder to understand than others. Scan articles in the topic areas you are considering to decide on the readability of the research in those areas.

READ THE ARTICLES

To write an effective review, you’ll need a solid grasp of the relevant research. Begin by reading the article you find easiest. Read, re-read, and mentally digest it until you have a conversational understanding of the paper. You don’t know what you know until you can talk about it. And if you can’t talk about it, you won’t be able to write about it.

Read selectively. Don't start by reading the articles from beginning to end. First, read just the Abstract to get an overview of the study.

Scan the article to identify the answers to these “Why-What-What-What” questions:

• Why did they do the study? Why does it matter?
• What did they do?
• What did they find?
• What does it mean?

The previous four questions correspond to these parts of a research article:

• Introduction: the research question and hypotheses

Create a summary sheet of each article’s key points. This will help you to integrate each article into your paper.

TIP: Give Scholarcy a try.

Read for depth. After you understand an article’s main points, read each section in detail for to gain the necessary indepth understanding to compare the work of different researchers.

WRITE THE LITERATURE REVIEW

Your goal is to evaluate a body of literature; i.e., to “identify relations, contradictions, gaps, and inconsistencies” and “suggest next steps to solve the research problem” (APA Publication Manual 2010, p. 10). Begin writing when you have decided on your story and how to organize your research to support that story.

Organization

Organize the literature review to highlight the theme that you want to emphasize – the story that you want to tell. Literature reviews tend to be organized something like this:

Introduction:

• Introduce the research topic (what it is, why does it matter)
• Frame the story: narrow the research topic to the studies you will discuss
• Briefly outline how you have organized the review
• Headings. Use theme headings to organize your argument (see below)
• Describe the relevant parts of each study and explain why it is relevant to the subtopic at hand.
• Compare the studies if need be, to discuss their implications (i.e., your interpretation of what the studies show and whether there are important differences or similarities)
• Evaluate the importance of each study or group of studies, as well as the implications for the subtopic, and where research should go from here (on the level of the subtopic)

Conclusion: Final evaluation, summation and conclusion

Headings. Use headings to identify major sections that show the organization of the paper. (Headings also help you to identify organizational problems while you’re writing.) Avoid the standard headings of research articles (Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion). Use specific, conceptual headings. If you are reviewing whether facial expressions are universally understood, headings might include Studies in Western Cultures and Studies in Non-Western Cultures. Organize your argument into topics that fit under each heading (one or more per heading).

Describe. For each section or subtopic, briefly describe each article or line of research. Avoid sudden jumps betewen broader and narrower ideas. Keep your story in mind to help keep your thoughts connected.

Compare. For each section or topic, compare related studies, if this is relevant to your story. Comparisons may involve the research question, hypotheses, methods, data analysis, results, or conclusions. However, you don’t want to compare everything. That wouldn’t be a story! Which parts are relevant? What evidence supports your arguments? Identifying strengths and weaknesses of each study will help you make meaningful comparisons.

If you're having trouble synthesizing information, you probably don't understand the articles well. Reread sections you don’t understand. Discuss the studies with someone: you don’t know what you know until you can talk about it.

Evaluate. Descriptions/comparisons alone are not illuminating. For each section or topic, evaluate the studies you have reviewed based on your comparisons. Tell your reader what you conclude, and why. Evaluating research is the most subjective part of your paper. Even so, always support your claims with evidence. Evaluation requires much thought and takes on some risk, but without it, your paper is just a book report.

Final evaluation and summation. On a broader scale, relating to your main theme, tell your reader what you conclude and why. Reiterate your main claims and outline the evidence that supports them.

Conclusion. How does your evaluatio change or add to current knowledge in the field field? What future studies are implied by your analysis? How would such studies add to current knowledge of the topic?

The purpose of a literature review is to survey, describe, compare, and evaluate research articles on a particular topic. Choose a current topic that is neither too broad nor too narrow. Find the story that you want to tell. Spend a lot of time reading and thinking before you write. Think critically about the main hypotheses, findings, and arguments in a line of research. Identify areas of agreement among different articles as well as their differences and areas for future study. Expect to revise your review many times to refine your story. A well-written literature review gives the reader a comprehensive understanding of the main findings and remaining questions brought about by research on that topic.

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Literature Review Overview

A literature review involves both the literature searching and the writing. The purpose of the literature search is to:

• reveal existing knowledge
• identify areas of consensus and debate
• identify gaps in knowledge
• identify approaches to research design and methodology
• identify other researchers with similar interests
• clarify your future directions for research

List above from Conducting A Literature Search , Information Research Methods and Systems, Penn State University Libraries

A literature review provides an evaluative review and documentation of what has been published by scholars and researchers on a given topic. In reviewing the published literature, the aim is to explain what ideas and knowledge have been gained and shared to date (i.e., hypotheses tested, scientific methods used, results and conclusions), the weakness and strengths of these previous works, and to identify remaining research questions: A literature review provides the context for your research, making clear why your topic deserves further investigation.

Before You Search

• Select and understand your research topic and question.
• Identify the major concepts in your topic and question.
• Brainstorm potential keywords/terms that correspond to those concepts.
• Identify alternative keywords/terms (narrower, broader, or related) to use if your first set of keywords do not work.
• Determine (Boolean*) relationships between terms.
• Begin your search.
• Review your search results.
• Revise & refine your search based on the initial findings.

*Boolean logic provides three ways search terms/phrases can be combined, using the following three operators: AND, OR, and NOT.

Search Process

The type of information you want to find and the practices of your discipline(s) drive the types of sources you seek and where you search.

For most research you will use multiple source types such as: annotated bibliographies; articles from journals, magazines, and newspapers; books; blogs; conference papers; data sets; dissertations; organization, company, or government reports; reference materials; systematic reviews; archival materials; curriculum materials; and more. It can be helpful to develop a comprehensive approach to review different sources and where you will search for each. Below is an example approach.

Utilize Current Awareness Services  Identify and browse current issues of the most relevant journals for your topic; Setup email or RSS Alerts, e.g., Journal Table of Contents, Saved Searches

Consult Experts   Identify and search for the publications of or contact educators, scholars, librarians, employees etc. at schools, organizations, and agencies

• Annual Reviews and Bibliographies   e.g., Annual Review of Psychology
• Internet   e.g., Discussion Groups, Listservs, Blogs, social networking sites
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• A literature review is a critical, analytical summary and synthesis of the current knowledge of a topic. As a researcher, you collect the available literature on a topic, and then select the literature that is most relevant for your purpose. Your written literature review summarizes and analyses the themes, topics, methods, and results of that literature in order to inform the reader about the history and current status of research on that topic.

What purpose does a literature review serve?

• The literature review informs the reader of the researcher's knowledge of the relevant research already conducted on the topic under discussion, and places the author's current study in context of previous studies.
• As part of a senior project, the literature review points out the current issues and questions concerning a topic. By relating the your research to a knowledge gap in the existing literature, you should demonstrate how his or her proposed research will contribute to expanding knowledge in that field.
• Short Literature Review Sample This literature review sample guides students from the thought process to a finished review.
• Literature Review Matrix (Excel Doc) Excel file that can be edited to suit your needs.
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Writing a Literature Review

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A literature review is a document or section of a document that collects key sources on a topic and discusses those sources in conversation with each other (also called synthesis ). The lit review is an important genre in many disciplines, not just literature (i.e., the study of works of literature such as novels and plays). When we say “literature review” or refer to “the literature,” we are talking about the research ( scholarship ) in a given field. You will often see the terms “the research,” “the scholarship,” and “the literature” used mostly interchangeably.

Where, when, and why would I write a lit review?

There are a number of different situations where you might write a literature review, each with slightly different expectations; different disciplines, too, have field-specific expectations for what a literature review is and does. For instance, in the humanities, authors might include more overt argumentation and interpretation of source material in their literature reviews, whereas in the sciences, authors are more likely to report study designs and results in their literature reviews; these differences reflect these disciplines’ purposes and conventions in scholarship. You should always look at examples from your own discipline and talk to professors or mentors in your field to be sure you understand your discipline’s conventions, for literature reviews as well as for any other genre.

A literature review can be a part of a research paper or scholarly article, usually falling after the introduction and before the research methods sections. In these cases, the lit review just needs to cover scholarship that is important to the issue you are writing about; sometimes it will also cover key sources that informed your research methodology.

Lit reviews can also be standalone pieces, either as assignments in a class or as publications. In a class, a lit review may be assigned to help students familiarize themselves with a topic and with scholarship in their field, get an idea of the other researchers working on the topic they’re interested in, find gaps in existing research in order to propose new projects, and/or develop a theoretical framework and methodology for later research. As a publication, a lit review usually is meant to help make other scholars’ lives easier by collecting and summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing existing research on a topic. This can be especially helpful for students or scholars getting into a new research area, or for directing an entire community of scholars toward questions that have not yet been answered.

What are the parts of a lit review?

Most lit reviews use a basic introduction-body-conclusion structure; if your lit review is part of a larger paper, the introduction and conclusion pieces may be just a few sentences while you focus most of your attention on the body. If your lit review is a standalone piece, the introduction and conclusion take up more space and give you a place to discuss your goals, research methods, and conclusions separately from where you discuss the literature itself.

Introduction:

• An introductory paragraph that explains what your working topic and thesis is
• A forecast of key topics or texts that will appear in the review
• Potentially, a description of how you found sources and how you analyzed them for inclusion and discussion in the review (more often found in published, standalone literature reviews than in lit review sections in an article or research paper)
• Summarize and synthesize: Give an overview of the main points of each source and combine them into a coherent whole
• Analyze and interpret: Don’t just paraphrase other researchers – add your own interpretations where possible, discussing the significance of findings in relation to the literature as a whole
• Critically Evaluate: Mention the strengths and weaknesses of your sources
• Write in well-structured paragraphs: Use transition words and topic sentence to draw connections, comparisons, and contrasts.

Conclusion:

• Summarize the key findings you have taken from the literature and emphasize their significance
• Connect it back to your primary research question

How should I organize my lit review?

Lit reviews can take many different organizational patterns depending on what you are trying to accomplish with the review. Here are some examples:

• Chronological : The simplest approach is to trace the development of the topic over time, which helps familiarize the audience with the topic (for instance if you are introducing something that is not commonly known in your field). If you choose this strategy, be careful to avoid simply listing and summarizing sources in order. Try to analyze the patterns, turning points, and key debates that have shaped the direction of the field. Give your interpretation of how and why certain developments occurred (as mentioned previously, this may not be appropriate in your discipline — check with a teacher or mentor if you’re unsure).
• Thematic : If you have found some recurring central themes that you will continue working with throughout your piece, you can organize your literature review into subsections that address different aspects of the topic. For example, if you are reviewing literature about women and religion, key themes can include the role of women in churches and the religious attitude towards women.
• Qualitative versus quantitative research
• Empirical versus theoretical scholarship
• Divide the research by sociological, historical, or cultural sources
• Theoretical : In many humanities articles, the literature review is the foundation for the theoretical framework. You can use it to discuss various theories, models, and definitions of key concepts. You can argue for the relevance of a specific theoretical approach or combine various theorical concepts to create a framework for your research.

What are some strategies or tips I can use while writing my lit review?

Any lit review is only as good as the research it discusses; make sure your sources are well-chosen and your research is thorough. Don’t be afraid to do more research if you discover a new thread as you’re writing. More info on the research process is available in our "Conducting Research" resources .

As you’re doing your research, create an annotated bibliography ( see our page on the this type of document ). Much of the information used in an annotated bibliography can be used also in a literature review, so you’ll be not only partially drafting your lit review as you research, but also developing your sense of the larger conversation going on among scholars, professionals, and any other stakeholders in your topic.

Usually you will need to synthesize research rather than just summarizing it. This means drawing connections between sources to create a picture of the scholarly conversation on a topic over time. Many student writers struggle to synthesize because they feel they don’t have anything to add to the scholars they are citing; here are some strategies to help you:

• It often helps to remember that the point of these kinds of syntheses is to show your readers how you understand your research, to help them read the rest of your paper.
• Writing teachers often say synthesis is like hosting a dinner party: imagine all your sources are together in a room, discussing your topic. What are they saying to each other?
• Look at the in-text citations in each paragraph. Are you citing just one source for each paragraph? This usually indicates summary only. When you have multiple sources cited in a paragraph, you are more likely to be synthesizing them (not always, but often
• Read more about synthesis here.

The most interesting literature reviews are often written as arguments (again, as mentioned at the beginning of the page, this is discipline-specific and doesn’t work for all situations). Often, the literature review is where you can establish your research as filling a particular gap or as relevant in a particular way. You have some chance to do this in your introduction in an article, but the literature review section gives a more extended opportunity to establish the conversation in the way you would like your readers to see it. You can choose the intellectual lineage you would like to be part of and whose definitions matter most to your thinking (mostly humanities-specific, but this goes for sciences as well). In addressing these points, you argue for your place in the conversation, which tends to make the lit review more compelling than a simple reporting of other sources.

• Literature review example analysis
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This example shows how a literature review from a PhD thesis can be analysed for its structure, purpose and content.

Three sections of the thesis are analysed to show the:

• relationship between the introduction and the literature review
• structure and purpose of dedicated literature review chapters
• inclusion of literature review in other chapters of the thesis.

Access the thesis

Co-witnesses and the effects of discussion on eyewitness memory by Helen M Paterson

Overview of thesis (introduction)

This introductory section is less than two pages long.

The first paragraph:

• states the overall objective of the thesis
• defines the introduced term
• provides broad motivation for interest in the area
• introduces the sections of the thesis that will address the overall objective.

The other paragraphs describe the content and purpose of each section of the thesis.

Literature review

The literature review is made of up of two chapters.

Chapter 1: Literature review of relevant research

The overall goals of this chapter are to firstly establish the significance of the general field of study, and then identify a place where a new contribution could be made.

The bulk of the chapter critically evaluates the methodologies used in this field to identify the appropriate approach for investigating the research questions.

Chapter 2: Theoretical explanations of memory conformity

Chapter 5, study 3: co-witness contamination.

This chapter has the following structure:

• Introduction
• Discussion.

The introduction introduces the particular study to be reported on, and includes a three-and-a-half page literature review.

The literature review in this chapter:

• links back to the relevant general findings of the earlier literature review chapters
• briefly reviews the broad motivation for this study
• identifies that two previously used methodologies in this field will be compared to resolve questions about the findings of previous studies which had only used a single methodology
• uses previous literature to generate specific hypotheses to test
• reviews additional literature to provide a justification for a second objective to be investigated in the study reported on in this chapter.

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Resilience and Indigenous Spirituality: A Literature Review

John fleming, robert j ledogar.

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Acknowledgement: We wish to acknowledge the valuable support and advice of Dr. Neil Andersson, Executive Director of CIETcanada in the preparation of this article. We also wish to thank the editors of Pimatisiwin and the anonymous reviewers whose very constructive comments helped to focus our analysis of the material presented here.

Indigenous spirituality is a more complex phenomenon than the term spirituality alone, as generally understood, implies. Spirituality is closely bound up with culture and ways of living in Indigenous communities and requires a more holistic or comprehensive research approach. Two conceptual frameworks could help to orient Indigenous resilience research. One is the enculturation framework. Enculturation refers to the degree of integration within a culture, which can be protective in social behaviour, academic achievement, alcohol abuse and cessation, substance abuse, externalizing behaviours, and depressive symptoms. Instruments for measuring enculturation generally have three components: traditional activities, cultural identification, and traditional spirituality. A second conceptual framework is cultural spiritual orientation which distinguishes between cultural spiritual orientations and tribal spiritual beliefs . Enculturation and cultural orientations are protective against alcohol abuse, suicide ideation, and suicide attempts. New tools are emerging for measuring the multidimensional nature of culturally rooted spirituality in Indigenous communities, tools that are context-specific and often the product of collaborative design processes. As the ability of researchers to measure these complex processes advances and Indigenous communities take increasing charge of their own research, it should become easier to design interventions that take advantage of the cultural/spiritual dimension of Indigenous traditions to promote individual, family, and community resilience.

Introduction

This review is part of a special issue of Pimatisiwin dedicated to Aboriginal resilience. The overall objective of this special issue is to support and promote Aboriginal resilience in a variety of contexts. One important resource for this may be Aboriginal spirituality. This review summarizes efforts to clarify the concept of Indigenous spirituality and to isolate it sufficiently to measure some of its effects.

Indigenous mental health professionals and social workers have taken the lead in promoting traditional spirituality and culture as possible resources in preventing and healing from alcoholism, substance abuse and addiction, suicide, and other behavioural and developmental pathologies which challenge many Indigenous communities of North America, especially their young people. In addition, Indigenous professionals consider traditional spirituality and culture as key appropriate responses to historical trauma and unresolved historical grief (see Fleming and Ledogar, 2008 ). They integrate traditional spirituality and culture into their practice, or develop professional practices from within traditional culture and its spirituality. This movement includes therapeutic interventions and individual counseling ( Duran and Duran, 1995 ), small group psycho-educational interventions ( Brave Heart, 1998 , 2003 ; Brave Heart and DeBruyn, 1998 ), larger scale addiction recovery programs ( Abbott, 1998 ) and suicide prevention programs ( Goldston et al., 2008 ).

It is helpful to clarify the scientific basis of this work, so practitioners can evaluate their work, clarify concepts, distinguish what works well from what works less well, and develop new tools on the basis of a clearer intellectual understanding of the processes involved. Some researchers have already responded to this need and this review summarizes the tools and outcomes of recent research so that other researchers and practitioners, many of them Aboriginal, can take the work further.

Definitions and Scope

We clarify the concept of resilience in Fleming and Ledogar (2008) . The most common definition of resilience is “positive adaptation despite adversity,” and most authors consider the presence of some demonstrable substantial risk to be essential. Some Aboriginal authors prefer to see resilience as a natural, human capacity to navigate life well. All the literature we encountered on resilience and Indigenous spirituality situated resilience in risk situations, but this review deliberately did not limit itself to any specific types of risk or adversity to which Aboriginal spirituality may be a response.

From the broader literature on spirituality, before specifying it as Indigenous spirituality, we used a working definition provided by Wong et al., drawn from earlier work by Benson et al.: “the intrinsic human capacity for self-transcendence, in which the self is embedded in something greater than the self, including the sacred” and which motivates “the search for connectedness, meaning, purpose, and contribution.” According to this definition, spirituality is contrasted with religiosity which is defined as “one’s relationship with a particular faith tradition or doctrine about a divine other or supernatural power” ( Wong et al., 2006 ; Benson et al., 2003 ).

We did not seek to define Indigenous spirituality . We looked for literature that used the term and the search itself showed Indigenous spirituality as a more complex concept than implied by the term spirituality alone in its general usage. It is clear that taking Indigenous spirituality into account in research requires a more holistic or comprehensive research approach.

We did not intentionally limit our inquiry to North America, but most of the published work on this subject had in fact been carried out in the United States, though some of the groups studied transcended American territorial limits to include members or relatives now situated in Canada.

Theory and Assumptions

Research on resilience and spirituality in an Indigenous context lacks a robust theoretical basis, or even a unified conceptual framework. We detected at least two conceptual approaches in the literature and tried to relate the existing results to either one or the other. But the concepts underlying both approaches are vague and may eventually be supplanted. Our main assumption, therefore, is that it is premature to categorize the theory too rigidly. In the discussion section below, we suggest some related lines of research that may eventually contribute to theoretical development in this field.

We conducted searches in the PubMed, PsychARTICLES, and SOCIndex databases, followed by reviews of key articles from the bibliographies of the articles identified, and a hand search of the online journal American Indian Alaska Native Mental Health Research: The Journal of the National Center . Keywords used were “Indigenous spirituality,” “Aboriginal spirituality,” “Native American spirituality,” and “American Indian spirituality,” each coupled with the term “resilience.” We subsequently used the “related items” feature of PubMed for additional material. The inclusion criteria used in this review were as follows:

The reference included a specific measurement instrument.

The measurement instrument included items related to spirituality.

The measurement instrument was used to gather population or community level data on a specific outcome of interest.

The article was focused on prevention rather than on treatment.

Our search ran from the earliest dates covered by each database until mid-2007.

At the theoretical level, research appears to have developed along two distinct but related lines: enculturation and cultural spiritual orientation.

Enculturation

Enculturation is distinguished from acculturation, which is the degree of assimilation to majority or dominant culture. Enculturation refers to the degree of integration within a culture — it is intra-cultural. The enculturation process can occur together with other processes of socialization. An Aboriginal person in Canada, for example, might be well-enculturated but maintain some level of identification with the majority culture as well. An enculturated youth might in fact be bicultural, identifying with both traditional Indigenous and mainstream, or majority, cultures simultaneously. This perspective conceptualizes the complexity of cultural identification, moving away from simple either/or views (see Oetting and Beauvais, 1990/91 ).

The authors most associated with the measurement of enculturation as a protective or resilience factor among Native North Americans are Zimmerman et al. and Whitbeck et al. Zimmerman et al. seem to have initiated the field, while Whitbeck and his colleagues built on that work. Table 1 presents some of the measurement instruments used by enculturation researchers grouped into three categories established by Whitbeck, while Table 2 presents the principal outcomes of their research according to the same conceptual grouping.

Enculturation Instruments

Enculturation Outcomes

Note: A significant effect was found between alcohol cessation and the composite measure of enculturation but not with the sub-component of cultural affinity analyzed separately.

Table 1 shows two important developments in the questions asked by Whitbeck in 2002 , compared with Zimmerman in 1994 . Under the category of cultural affinity or Native American identity Whitbeck chose a different set of questions, a set adapted from the work of Oetting and Beauvais (1990–91) which introduces the notion of success within Native American culture: how successful are the respondent and his/her family in Native American culture?

The second important development is the introduction of traditional spirituality as a concept separate from traditional activities. The concept includes both traditional spiritual activities and traditional spiritual values, but the precise content of either of these notions is not readily available to the non-Indigenous researcher. Furthermore, it appears that this content can and does change from one tribe or band to another. Its definition is based on consultations with tribal Elders.

Table 2 illustrates the initially tentative outcomes of research on resilience and enculturation. When Zimmerman and colleagues (1998 [1994]) reported the first use of the instrument in research, their results were mixed. They did not find direct main effects of enculturation, but they did find that

… the influence of enculturation on alcohol and substance use interact with self-esteem. The enculturation hypothesis was supported by the finding that youth with the highest levels of self-esteem and cultural identity reported the lowest levels of alcohol and substance use. Support for the hypothesis was somewhat mitigated, however, by the finding that youth with low levels of self-esteem and high levels of cultural identity reported the most alcohol and substance use. ( Zimmerman et al., 1998 [1994] , p. 215)

These researchers speculated that exposure to racist attitudes may have a negative effect on the self-esteem of Native American youth ( Zimmerman et al., 1998 [1994] ).

When Whitbeck et al. reported on enculturation and academic success in 2001 , they found a positive association between enculturation and school success. Self-esteem was also independently associated with school success. The researchers concluded that enculturation is a resilience factor in the development of Native American children. Their results support those of Zimmerman and colleagues (1994) , although in the Whitbeck et al. model, enculturation did not interact with self-esteem.

In 2002, Whitbeck et al. reported on traditional activities, perceived social support, perceived discrimination, and depressive symptoms. In this case they used only the first component (traditional activities) of their three-part enculturation construct — leaving out cultural identification and traditional spirituality. The researchers found one significant interaction between discrimination and traditional practices: for those whose participation in traditional practices was above the mean, discrimination had almost no effect on depressive symptoms — the traditional practices acted as a buffer.

Whitbeck and colleagues were still encountering mixed effects in 2004 when they reported on enculturation, discrimination, historical loss, and alcohol abuse. They found, at best, a limited protective effect of traditional culture on alcohol abuse. It appeared that those who are highly enculturated are also those who report higher levels of historical loss. The authors suggest that traditional culture both sensitizes one to loss and serves as a protection from reminders of loss.

It is only with the most recent group of studies by Torres Stone et al. (2006) , La Fromboise et al. (2006) , and Yoder et al. (2006) , that enculturation (including all three component concepts) appears to be protective against alcohol and other substance abuse and suicidal ideation. In Torres Stone et al., traditional activities and traditional spirituality were convincingly associated with alcohol cessation, but cultural identity was not. LaFromboise et al. found that age was associated with decreasing resilience. “With each year of increase in age (from 10 to 15 years), there was an associated lowering of resilience by a multiplicative factor of 0.626. This represents an approximate 10% decline in resilience with each year of age” ( LaFromboise et al., 2006 , p. 202). For Yoder et al., enculturation did not appear to be significant when analyzed in a simple relationship with suicidal thoughts, but when the researchers took all the other variables into account in a multivariate model it did become significant and proved to be the second strongest predictor variable (after drug use) of suicidal ideation. Based on previous work by Paulhus et al., the authors hypothesize that the other variables in the model “unleash the latent predictive power of enculturation that is not apparent at the bivariate level” ( Yoder, et al., 2006 , pp. 185–86).

Cultural Spiritual Orientations

Table 3 presents both questions used in, and outcomes from, the research reported by two groups whose conceptual approach is somewhat different from the enculturation group, Garroute et al. and Herman-Stahl et al. While Garroute et al.’s questions speak explicitly of spirituality, those of Herman-Stahl et al. do not. Thus the grouping of these within the same conceptual category is tentative at best.

Cultural Spiritual Orientation Questions and Outcomes

Outcomes related to cultural spiritual orientations are presented in the lower part of Table 3 . Garroutte et al. (2003) reported on spirituality and attempted suicide. Their study was part of a larger project called American Indian Service Utilization, Psychiatric Epidemiology, Risk and Protective Factors Project (AI-SUPERPFP) on alcohol abuse and dependence, drug abuse and dependence, major and minor depressive disorders, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and antisocial personality disorder. Their fully adjusted analysis found that those with a high score of cultural spiritual orientations were half as likely to attempt suicide as those without such an orientation. On the other hand, the analysis found no such association with either tribal spiritual beliefs or Christian beliefs. The researchers concluded that “the cognitive measures of belief may not adequately capture commitment to some forms of spirituality embraced by American Indian peoples, and that an alternative measure of spiritual orientations might be more valuable” ( Garroutte et al., 2003 , p. 1577).

Herman-Stahl et al. used cultural orientation

to denote an individual’s identification with and participation in his/her own culture as well as the dominant culture. Cultural orientation is a multidimensional, multidirectional process through which identification to the traditional and dominant culture occurs independently yet simultaneously. ( Herman-Stahl et al., 2003 , p. 48)

All the instruments we reviewed were designed to encompass the multidimensional nature of culturally rooted spirituality in Indigenous communities in North America. These dimensions include knowledge, emotion, decision, and sense of self-efficacy as well as relationships to family, peers and community. They also take in ritual, language, and relationships with the physical environment.

Although we did not conduct this review with specific outcomes in mind, the literature reviewed does lend itself to some generalizations about Indigenous spirituality in relation to two risk areas: alcohol abuse and suicide.

Four studies in this review assessed the impact of Indigenous spirituality on alcohol abuse among American Indians. These outcomes are presented in Table 2 . The implication seems to be that involvement in traditional culture and its inherent spirituality helps to prevent the abuse of alcohol among Aboriginal people and may also aid individuals to recover from alcohol abuse.

Two articles reviewed here, one on suicidal ideation among youth and the other on attempted suicide, assessed the relation of Indigenous spirituality with suicide among Native Americans. These outcomes are also summarized in Table 2 . These two studies suggest that spirituality may be an important component of the protective association that has been found by Chandler and Lalonde between cultural continuity, or cultural resilience, and youth suicide (see Chandler and Lalonde, 1998 and Fleming and Ledogar, 1998).

In addition to these outcomes, four of the studies on enculturation listed in Table 2 included an assessment of discrimination as a risk factor for decreased resilience. Perceived discrimination was found to be an important risk factor for decreased resilient outcomes, based on a composite measure of resilience ( LaFromboise et al., 2006 ), and was found to be an important predictor of suicidal ideation among American Indian youth ( Yoder et al., 2006 ). One study found that traditional practices, one component of the three-component construct of enculturation, was an important buffer to perceived discrimination ( Whitbeck et al., 2002 ). Another found that enculturation did not buffer (neither mediated nor moderated) the effects of discrimination on alcohol use, but combined with historical loss did mediate its effects ( Whitbeck et al., 2004 ). More research is needed to evaluate the potential buffering effect of Indigenous spirituality and traditional culture on the effects of discrimination.

Critical Knowledge Gaps

A key knowledge gap is the applicability of enculturation and cultural spiritual orientations to Aboriginal populations living off-reserve. All of the studies reviewed here drew their samples from people who lived on or near reservations.

The heterogeneity of urban Aboriginal populations presents a challenge to this emerging body of research. Aboriginal populations in cities often comprise multiple cultural or national groups. Measuring enculturation under such circumstances is bound to be more difficult. CIETcanada is currently adapting the Whitbeck et al. enculturation instrument for use with an urban Aboriginal population in its Edmonton and Ottawa phase of the ACRA project, studying resilience factors for risky sexual behaviours related to HIV-AIDS, sexually transmitted infections, and blood-borne viruses (see Andersson and Ledogar, 2008 ).

Some encouragement to proceed in this area is provided by LaFromboise et al., whose sample included youth living off reservation but attending reservation schools. They reported that living on reservation was not significant for predicting resilience and concluded that this finding “attests to the salience of cultural involvement among American Indians, as well as their tenacity to maintain cultural affiliation despite continuous pressures for acculturation” ( LaFromboise et al., 2006 , p. 204). In addition, the authors indicate that the finding confirms the growth of cultural revitalization and ongoing community connections among American Indians regardless of residential location.

Cultural Spiritual Orientation and Related Concepts

The instrument measuring cultural spiritual orientations may also be useful in the case of urban Aboriginal youth. While designed in collaboration with the tribal stakeholders of the specific American Indian tribe which participated in the study, its items are personal and global in nature.

Garroutte et al. found that cultural spiritual orientation predicted fewer attempted suicides, whereas neither Christian beliefs or traditional spiritual beliefs had any impact on attempted suicide ( Garroutte et al., 2003 ). This finding is consistent with results of studies using the Spiritual Well Being Scale (SWBS) in non-Aboriginal populations on different outcomes (see Cotton et al., 2005 ; Tsuang et al., 2007 ). The SWBS, conceived in an evangelical Christian context, consists of two subscales called religious well being and existential well being scales ( Ellison and Smith, 1991 ). Several SWBS studies report that existential well being significantly impacts health outcomes and/or health related behaviours, whereas religious well being does not. The authors of one such study, which assessed the impact of spirituality on anxiety in adolescents, argue that many people may hold abstract religious beliefs without these beliefs having much personal relevance for the believer. “Abstract religious beliefs that do not provide a sense of personal meaning and purpose would not be expected to have a negative relationship with anxiety” ( Davis et al., 2003 , p. 363).

The items in the existential well-being scale are:

I don’t know who I am, where I came from, where I’m going.

I am very fulfilled and satisfied with life.

I feel good about my future.

My life doesn’t have much meaning.

I believe there is some real purpose in my life. ( Cotton et al., 2005 )

Interestingly, both the instrument reported by Garroute et al. and the existential well being scale may have similarities with the Sense of Coherence (SOC) scale ( Antonovksy, 1998 ). These similarities are significant because SOC has been found to affect a wide range of health outcomes ( Eriksson and Lindstrom, 2006 ). Antonovsky reported that SOC has three underlying dimensions: comprehensibility; manageability; and meaningfulness. These reflected three levels of psychological functioning: cognitive (perceptual); instrumental; and motivational. The first three questions of Garroute et al.’s cultural spiritual orientation scale (see Table 3 ) seem to reflect the comprehensibility/cognitive dimension, while the fifth question seems to reflect the manageability/instrumental dimension and questions 4, 6–8 reflect the meaningfulness or motivational dimension. Antonovsky stated that the underlying inspiration, in his theory of salutogensis (“growth toward health”) and the related measurement instrument, was to explain the emergence of “order from chaos.” It is possible to detect a similar purpose in both the cultural spiritual orientation and the existential well being instruments. Perhaps Garroute et al.’s instrument taps into the same latent concept in language more meaningful to the Native Americans who participated in his survey. (CIET used a modified 9-item version of the SOC in the 1996 Nechi-2 study among 239 high school youth in Victoria, British Columbia, but did not find a significant association with smoking, alcohol abuse, or criminal involvement (see Andersson and Ledogar, 2008 ).

Suggestions for future research

One obvious task for future research is to replicate in urban settings and among a variety of Canadian Aboriginal groups the findings on Aboriginal spirituality reported here, which are based mainly on evidence from a limited number of on-reserve Native American groups.

A second task is to investigate the role of Aboriginal spirituality in promoting resilience to other outcomes of concern, for example, sexual risk taking in relation to HIV-AIDS as well as to replicate the initial findings in the areas of youth suicide and alcohol abuse consistently for specific age groups. Careful evaluations of existing interventions that call upon spirituality as an instrument in both prevention and recovery work could also help in the effort to achieve greater conceptual clarity in this field.

The content of enculturation and cultural orientation remains fluid. Researchers have had similar results with some components of these concepts removed or changed from one community to another. Such changes may reflect the participatory nature of so much of the research on this subject. Because their content is so context-specific and so dependent on participatory design processes, factor analysis would be difficult if not inappropriate. Further research in the same communities may lead to greater insight into the spirituality of those communities (internal validity). Across communities, some instruments may be borrowed or adapted, but attempts to standardize instruments for generalized application in Aboriginal communities may be misguided.

Evidence is accumulating in favour of resilience from elements of a broad concept that includes cultural identity, participation in traditional activities, and “spirituality.” As the ability of researchers to measure these complex processes in respectful and collaborative ways advances, and as Indigenous communities take increasing charge of their own research, the cultural/spiritual dimensions of Aboriginal traditions should emerge even more strongly as key factors in efforts to foster and promote both personal and communal resilience.

Recommendations

In the introduction we pointed out that Indigenous mental health professionals and social workers have taken the lead in promoting traditional spirituality and culture as possible resources in the struggle against alcoholism, substance abuse and addiction, suicide, and other behavioural and developmental pathologies which challenge many Indigenous communities of North America, especially their young people. Most of this has been healing and recovery rather than preventive work. The literature we have reviewed indicates that traditional spirituality has an important role to play in the area of prevention as well. The exact content of the spirituality component in any preventive program is difficult to specify because Indigenous spirituality is deeply embedded in each person’s own cultural traditions which may well involve knowledge and practices that are sacred to those traditions and can be tapped in ways that differ somewhat with each tradition. But this should not prevent Aboriginal researchers from accompanying these preventive programs with careful evaluation to learn which elements of each tradition deserve particular emphasis in various contexts.

Programs in urban areas where traditions are mixed might well incorporate spirituality components based on the less specific models labeled “cultural spiritual orientation” and, again, involve Aboriginal researchers in evaluating their effectiveness. The spirituality component of this model has similarities, as we have seen, with spirituality identified in other, non-Indigenous, models. In tapping into their own spiritual traditions Aboriginal youth may well be making contact with something more universal. Aboriginal professionals and researchers who help their youth recover their own spirituality could thus be contributing to a broader movement.

Above all, Aboriginal spirituality should not be treated merely as an antidote to pathologies like substance abuse and suicide. It is a resource for “navigating life” and for transcendence.

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Diversity of Thought in Polarized Times

How to promote understanding and collaboration in a polarized climate..

Updated October 22, 2024 | Reviewed by Abigail Fagan

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• Diverse perspectives often face resistance in academia and society.
• Self-censorship on campuses hinders civic dialogue of controversial topics.
• Emotional ties to issues create affective polarization, complicating civic, rational discourse.

To illustrate the issue of resistance to diversity of thought, I want to begin with an example from my own research. Diversity of thought is not only a challenge in social and political realms—it has always been an issue in science too.

Years ago, I conducted a research study that brought together descendants of Holocaust survivors and descendants of Nazis for a meeting at Harvard University. Later, I extended this work to include descendants of enslaved people and descendants of slaveholders.

My hypothesis was that both the descendants of the victims and the oppressors would have been impacted by the injustices of the past, and I sought to explore the psychological legacies of historical injustice on both groups.

Although this was a research study grounded in scientific inquiry, the idea itself was met with significant resistance. Some argued that this was a case of moral equivalency, as if simply studying the psychological impact on both descendant groups was somehow implying that the suffering of the victims was equivalent to the actions of the oppressors.

I had to spend time explaining that this was not the assumption of the study; rather, the point of research is to explore questions, not to make assumptions. The goal was to investigate how both groups of descendants had been impacted by historical injustice, not to make any claims of equal responsibility or experience (Weissmark, 2012). At the time, I was also mindful of how this controversial research might affect my tenure review, which, while ultimately successful, felt risky given the sensitive nature of the study.

What I encountered was not just resistance to the content but to the very idea of exploring it scientifically. This experience mirrors a broader problem in today’s society, especially in academic settings, where certain topics are increasingly seen as off-limits or too emotionally charged for discussion.

However, science has a long history of exploring ideas that were initially seen as taboo. Perhaps the most famous example of the resistance to diversity of thought in science is the one associated with Nicolaus Copernicus. When Copernicus suggested that the Earth revolves around the Sun, he faced fierce opposition from the authorities. Copernicus waited until 1543, shortly before his death to publish his research.

Few people accepted Copernicus's theory that the Sun, not the Earth was at the center of the solar system. And those people who did give credence to the idea were charged with heresy, like Galileo, who was tried in 1633 for heresy under the Roman Inquisition and placed under house arrest for life.

Yet, eventually, the Copernican idea sparked a revolution in scientific thought and reshaped our understanding of the universe. Science has always pushed boundaries , and what was once controversial often becomes the foundation for new knowledge.

Stifled Learning Environments on College Campuses

College campuses have traditionally been the breeding grounds for developing and testing groundbreaking ideas. These were institutions where students and faculty were inspired to challenge the prevailing status quo and test new theories and hypotheses. However, in recent years, campuses have become stifled learning environments.

The 2024 Knight Foundation-Ipsos survey, conducted between March 7 and 28, reveals that two in three students (n=1,678) are now concerned about expressing their opinions. Similarly, two in three students report self-censoring during classroom discussions, particularly on sensitive topics like gender , race, or religion. Also, a recent Harvard study found that nearly half of the faculty are hesitant to engage with these controversial subjects (Harvard, 2024).

Most students believe this self-censorship limits valuable educational conversations on campus. Additionally, the majority of students are unaware of any initiatives at their school aimed at promoting positive discussions (Knight Foundation, 2024).

Climate of Self-Censorship and Affective Polarization

This climate of self-censorship in classrooms on college campuses stifles the very purpose of higher education: the exploration of knowledge and the development of critical thinking. This increasing reluctance to express opinions on controversial topics is what social scientists refer to as “affective polarization.” It occurs when individuals’ emotional identities become deeply entwined with social issues, making rational discourse nearly impossible.

When people’s beliefs about topics like race, gender, or religion become central to their identity , any challenge to these beliefs feels like a personal attack. As a result, conversations devolve into emotional arguments rather than thoughtful discussions. This dynamic makes it nearly impossible to approach these issues objectively.

Some have suggested that the solution to this problem is to teach students how to debate and argue effectively. This might work for a subset of individuals—those who thrive in adversarial environments like politicians or lawyers—it overlooks the fact that not everyone learns well in a win-lose context.

While teaching students how to debate and argue effectively can be valuable, especially for those who excel in adversarial environments, it is not the only approach. My Science of Diversity Method offers a complementary framework. By encouraging thoughtful exploration of complex issues without the pressure to "win," this method provides an alternative for those who may feel less comfortable in combative settings. Both methods can coexist, offering students a range of tools for engaging in meaningful discourse.

Science of Diversity Method: Avoiding Affective Polarization

This is a framework that isn’t limited to students or scientists or academics. It’s a method for anyone seeking to explore difficult topics—whether they’re about diversity, politics , or any other controversial issue. Unlike other diversity initiatives, which often come with a pre-established agenda, the Science of Diversity Method is rooted in the scientific method. It encourages individuals to gather data, form hypotheses, and test their assumptions (Weissmark, 2023). It is designed to help people navigate emotionally charged topics without falling into the trap of affective polarization (Weissmark, 2020; Weissmark, 2024)

It consists of five key principles:

• Gather Evidence : Begin by gathering as much evidence as possible, even from sources you might not agree with. This helps eliminate bias and ensures a more comprehensive understanding of the issue.
• Formulate Hypotheses : After gathering evidence, formulate multiple hypotheses. Do not just settle on the one that feels right; consider all possibilities.
• Test Your Assumptions : Testing your assumptions involves researching the literature or running a research study or listening to others, especially those with differing viewpoints, and seeing how your hypotheses hold up. It requires intellectual humility and a willingness to be proven wrong.
• Challenge Biases : We all have biases, and they often get in the way of formulating hypotheses or interpreting data. This method encourages individuals to reflect on their biases and actively work to mitigate them.
• Seek Understanding, Not Victory : The goal is not to win an argument but to increase understanding. This approach helps reduce affective polarization by focusing on knowledge rather than emotional identity.

The scientific method has been our most reliable tool for increasing knowledge since its development in ancient times. It is a universally accepted method that has stood the test of time, helping humanity make sense of the world.

Ultimately, universities and colleges are supposed to be places that foster knowledge. Yet, in today’s polarized environment, that goal is becoming harder to achieve. The Science of Diversity Method offers a way forward. It allows students, faculty, and the public to engage with difficult, controversial subjects in a way that doesn’t reduce conversations to emotional battles. Instead, it promotes an approach grounded in inquiry, evidence, reason, and open-mindedness.

If we are intent on addressing the complex issues of diversity—whether in terms of race, gender, religion, or political ideology—we can apply the scientific method to these discussions. By doing so we can hope to surpass the current polarization and advance our understanding of these vital issues.

Copyright 2024 Weissmark All Rights Reserved

Harvard. (2024 ). Report on Open Inquiry and Constructive Dialogue . Office of the Provost. https://provost.harvard.edu/report-open-inquiry-and-constructive-dialog…

Knight Foundation. (2024 July 30). College Student Views on Free Expression and Campus Speech 2024. Knight Foundation. https://knightfoundation.org/reports/college-student-views-on-free-expr…

Weissmark, M. (2012). Justice Matters: Legacies of the Holocaust and World War II. Oxford University Press.

Weissmark, M. (2020). The Science of Diversity. Oxford University Press.

Weissmark, M. (2023, August 29). 5 Helpful Hacks for Depolarizing Our Divided Conversations. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/justice-matters/202308/5-helpfu…

Weissmark, M. (2024, August 16). Cultivating Constructive Dialogue: The Science Diversity Method. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/justice-matters/202408/cultivat…

(Ipsos conducted this poll March 7-28, 2024, using the Ipsos Knowledge Panel® and the YouthPulse Panel, on behalf of Knight Foundation. This poll is based on a representative sample of 1,678 currently enrolled college students between the ages of 18 and 24. The sample includes 418 students who attend two-year colleges and 1,246 students at four-year colleges.)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank my husband, Daniel Giacomo, for all his thoughtful discussions and helpful suggestions while I was working on this article. I’m also grateful to Darrell Graham for his critical reviews. A special thanks to Menna Saleh for being such an amazing teaching fellow for our Psychology of Diversity courses at Harvard University and helping to explain these concepts so well. I so appreciate Bushra Hassan for expertly managing our social media efforts to help us reach a wider audience. And thanks to Amy Pham for her help with the image, the reference sections, and for creating videos that showcase our work!

Mona Sue Weissmark, Ph.D. , is a psychology professor and founder of the Program Initiative for Global Mental Health Studies at Northwestern University.

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