The Seekers: Do Spiritual Practices Lead to Higher Subjective Happiness?

This past year, I joined participants of spiritual retreats in India and Spain. I was surprised to discover that
in each location individuals who had undergone some sort of spiritual process (a process through which one
discovers a sense of self or "spirit") reported similar emotional and behavior changes from the experience –
particularly individuals who walked the Camino de Santiago, a Catholic pilgrimage in Northern Spain, and
those who completed intensive, silent meditation retreats in India. My thesis will explore similarities and
differences between the Art of Silence meditation retreat and the Camino de Santiago and participants'
emotional outcomes. I will use both qualitative and quantitative data to document how practitioners changed
during the processes and identify what community dynamics, interactions, and individual behaviors contributed
to their developmental process. I hope to answer my research question of how spiritual processes influence
emotion and behavior.