Sarah Schnitker on Patience, Courage & the Pursuit of Justice

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Monday, March 25, 2024 12:00 pm

As part of the Virtues & Vocations series Education for Flourishing: Conversations on Character & the Common Good, we are pleased to present a conversation on Patience, Courage & the Pursuit of Justice with Sarah Schnitker, Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience and Director of the Science of Virtues lab at Baylor University.

Meet the Speaker: Sarah Schnitker

Dr. Sarah Schnitker studies virtue and character development in adolescents and emerging adults, with a focus on the role of spirituality and religion in virtue formation. She specializes in the study of patience, self-control, gratitude, generosity, and thrift.  Schnitker has published more than 75 peer-review articles and edited chapters, and she has procured more than $10 million in funding as a principal investigator on multiple research grants. Schnitker is an Associate Editor for Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, an Editorial Board member for the Journal of Research in Personality, and a co-editor of the forthcoming Handbook of Positive Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality. She is a dedicated mentor, having served as dissertation advisor for more than 20 doctoral students, whom she helps to cultivate intellectual virtues alongside scientific competencies. She is the recipient of the Virginia Sexton American Psychological Association’s Division 36 Mentoring Award and the Student International Positive Psychology Association Mentor Award.

For more information about her research, please visit the Science of Virtues website.  

Patience and Purpose in the Pursuit of Personal Projects

“What are your personal strengths and weaknesses?” is a common question posed to students in applications for admittance to programs, internships, or leadership positions culminating is the question being tendered when interviewing for jobs. Students tend to describe themselves with a plethora of virtues articulating their strengths, such as kindness, leadership, integrity, generosity, or perseverance, but tend not to describe their weakness in such virtue-based language. Yet, there is an exception to the rule. Deficient patience is commonly cited as a weakness. Students (and faculty for that matter) are quite comfortable discussing their lack of patience as a weakness with a positive twist; they are so driven and performance oriented that they don’t have time for patience. Patience is for slackers, which they are not.

Why do people love to hate on patience in this way in universities and the professions? And what are the implications of this attitude toward patience for the formation of student vocation and flourishing?

In my lab, we define patience as the ability remain calm in the face of frustration, adversity, and suffering in the pursuit of something good beyond the self. Derived from the Latin root pati, which means “to suffer” and which is further derived from the Latin sub– and ferre, which denote “from below or under” and “to bear,” patience entails being able to bear under the burdens of suffering with excellence. Why should such a virtue fall into ignominy? In his 1997 book, Patience: How We Wait Upon the World, moral theologian David Bailey Harned argues that patience has been conceptualized as an “outdated” virtue representing a “unimaginative failure of nerve” since the industrial revolution. People have come to equate patience with passivity. Arguably, the information revolution of the last few decades has only exacerbated the problem as technological advances have accelerated exponentially—further solidifying the assumption that suffering and waiting can be eradicated. Yet, as any person mildly attentive to news over the past few years knows, suffering and waiting have not disappeared. Instead, certain forms of suffering seem to be increasing – especially among college students, who are displaying unprecedented levels of anxiety and depressive symptomology.

Is the broad public assumption correct that we should cast patience aside because it is a form of passivity or inaction? Does patience mean capitulating to a negative state of affairs and giving up on the pursuits of a flourishing life? The psychological literature suggests the answer to this question is a resounding no. In addition to studies showing that patience is associated with enhanced well-being and decreased mental illness symptomology, research shows patience does not represent passivity, lack of assertiveness, or disengagement from important goal pursuits. Instead, our research suggests patience facilitates the adaptive pursuit of goals. In a 2017 study, we asked college students to list 10 personal projects (i.e., goals) they would be pursuing across the course of the academic quarter and rate the pursuit of each project on a variety of dimensions. We then had them re-evaluate their pursuit of their goals every two weeks, resulting in five measurement occasions. Using sophisticated analytic approaches, we were able to show that when students rated themselves as more patient in their pursuit of a particular project, they reported higher effort and greater goal achievement satisfaction in pursuit of that project two weeks later. Likewise, students were likely to employ more subsequent patience when they were effortfully pursuing a goal. Rather than undermining effortful goal pursuit, patience facilitated it.

Moreover, the purpose or meaning behind the goal matters for patience, and patience can buffer against existential crises. In our model of college students’ goal pursuit, we found that when goals where more meaningful, students were more likely to report patience in their pursuit two weeks later, and when students were pursuing goals with patience, those goals became more meaningful. In a 2021 study looking at the function of virtues among individuals hospitalized at a psychiatric inpatient facility, we found that patience and gratitude buffered the deleterious effects of existential crises on suicide risk. It is commonly found that spiritual struggles related to existential questions of meaning and purpose in life are robust predictors of elevated suicide risk. However, this association was attenuated by high patience and gratitude in our study; these virtues allowed people to suffer existential concerns without the same resultant increase in suicidality. Given that suicide ranks among the top three causes of death among adolescents and young adults, the evidence that virtues may serve as protective factors is essential information for educators. Together, these studies (and others) show that purpose and patience co-facilitate each other, and patience may be an essential strength when people are questioning their life purpose.

Thus, despite broad cultural assumptions that lack of patience is a strength that is masquerading as a weakness, it is worthwhile to instill in our students that patience is actually a virtue that facilitates the achievement of goals, provides purpose, and supports a flourishing life.

This article was written by Sarah Schnitker, Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, Baylor University and originally published by Center for Social Concerns in the “Good Thought” blog in April 2022. A monthly publication of Virtues & Vocations, “Good Thought” pieces showcase scholars from various disciplines reflecting on how issues of virtue and vocation intersect with their work in higher education.

Podcast: Religion as a Context for Character Development with Sarah Schnitker

Dr. Sarah Schnitker is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University, where she directs the Science of Virtues Lab. She previously researched as an associate professor in the Thrive Center for Human Development at Fuller Theological Seminary. As a principle investigator, Sarah has secured more than $3.5 million in research funding through the John Templeton Foundation for a number of projects with various aims, including understanding gratitude towards God and fleshing out a foundation for the scientific study of patience. In this podcast, we discuss her work which focuses on the role of religiosity as a fertile context in which virtue and character develop in adolescents.

To listen to Sarah’s episode of The Moral Science Podcast, “Religion as a Context for Character Development with Sarah Schnitker,” please click here.

Can We Do Better than the Enneagram?

Article Summary from Christianity Today by Sarah Schnitker: Many psychologists have strong views on the Enneagram, ranging from the inquisitive and interested to the dismissive and disdainful. The nine-type system is growing in popularity, spawning a range of books and media in recent years, including a documentary that was slated to release in fall 2020 from best-selling author Chris Heuertz but was halted amid allegations of spiritual and psychological abuse committed by Heuertz.

Despite the attention, many are unaware of the Enneagram’s history, purpose, or limitations. Most psychologists agree there is misalignment between pop-culture typologies and current personality science, but they have failed to communicate alternate, scientifically vetted ways for people to think about how personality functions in relation to spiritual and relational growth.

At present, there is scant empirical evidence that the Enneagram accurately describes human personality or spirituality. The nine types do not align with any scientifically evaluated models of personality.

To read the full article, please click here.

Podcast: The Psychology of Patience

What is the place of patience in a life worth living? Evidence from psychology suggests that it plays an important role in managing life’s stresses, contributing to a greater sense of well-being, and is even negatively correlated with depression and suicide risk. Psychologist Sarah Schnitker (Baylor University) explains her research on patience, how psychological methodology integrates with theology and philosophy to define and measure the virtue, and offers an evidence-based intervention for becoming more patient. She also discusses the connection between patience and gratitude, the role of patience in a meaningful life, and how acedia, a forgotten vice to modern people, lurks in the shadows when we are deficient in patience.

To listen to Sarah’s episode of The Psychology of Patience podcast from the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, please click here.