

A multidisciplinary coding team conducted quantitative and qualitative content analysis (Nvivo).

A total of 456 Belgian adults (64% female, mean age = 50.04) provided descriptions of grace in an online survey. This study clarifies the concept of grace and creates a bottom-up definition, based on the understanding of non-experts in a secularized society. Conceptualizations of grace seem predominantly constructed within theological and theoretical frameworks, whereas these conceptualizations may be poorly aligned with the definitions of grace of lay persons.

Grace is a central theme in religious traditions but receives only recently attention by psychologists.
