On December 12, 2025, we received very sad news: our wonderful colleague and friend, Paweł Socha, an exceptional figure in Polish psychology of religion and spirituality, has passed away. At one time, he collaborated with David Hay and also arranged a scholarship to facilitate scientific discussions with Kenneth Pargament. Paweł was also, together with me, a co-founder of the Polish Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality at the University of Gdańsk in 2012.
In the name of the Polish Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality (PSPRS, pol. PTPRiD)
Katarzyna Skrzypińska
President of PSPRS
Paweł Marian Socha (1949-2025) was one of the few Polish scholars, not necessarily psychologists, devoting their research to the nowadays fashionable issue of spirituality. Aware of the pitfalls that can follow the fascination of researchers, he has led to the development of the theoretical concept of this phenomenon. It is the naturalistic, broad, existential-phenomenological approach, which takes on the account both internal and external resources of spirituality. The previous determines the outcome by, e.g., an exceptional kind of mind, intensive training, or motivation (expected wellbeing, differently conceived happiness). The latter resources are the patterns of culture – including particular religious traditions, as well as the entirely secular ones – habits of family life, observance of civil events, celebrating anniversaries, striving to attract a partner, or grilling at the barbecue meeting. One very significant phenomenon arises every time – the feeling of sacredness. To measure it, Socha developed the H Scale (Scale of Hierophanies).
Such a deep interest in Socha was the outcome of his earlier studies on the relationships between religiousness and personality, with particular attention to the consequences of these relationships, such as emotional dependence, prejudice, fundamentalism, and, on the other hand, successful coping with stress. Between 1976 and 2000, he carried out projects that evidenced a simple truth: it is not so much important to be religious or not, but crucial to know how one is religious. These projects followed rigorous methodological studies to develop the necessary tools to measure the investigated variables, such as religiousness, religious orientations, dependence, and coping. He was also interested in the views of atheists and doubters.
During his creative life path, Paweł Socha collaborated with Halina Grzymała-Moszczyńska, his long-time supervisor and mentor, David Hay, looking for spirituality as a natural phenomenon, but also arranged the scholarship to have scientific discussions with Kenneth Pargament, and others. Paweł was also a co-founder with Katarzyna Skrzypińska of the Polish Society for the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality at the University of Gdańsk in 2012. Paweł Socha spent his last years seriously ill.
His latest publications:
Socha, P. M. & Świderska-Krzysztof, A. (2025). Prolegomena do psychologii duchowości [Prolegomena to the Psychology of Spirituality]. Krakow, Scientific Publishing House of the Ignatianum University.
Skrzypińska, K. & Socha, P. M. (2026). Poland: The Psychology of Religion up to 2020. In: Cambridge International Handbook of the Psychology of Religion. K. L. Ladd, J. Basu, V. DeMarinis, Ü. Ok, W. Zangari (Eds.), Cambridge University.
Webpage https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pawel-Socha-2