Understanding the role of religion in mental illness has always been complicated as some people turn to religion to cope with their illness, whereas others turn away. The overarching purpose of this study was to draw on quantitative and qualitative information to illuminate ways in which religiousness might be associated with changes in depressive symptomatology in a spiritually integrated inpatient

This article explores the contribution of religion and spirituality to the happiness of people who have lived with quadriplegia over the medium to long term. It arises out of a qualitative study on living the good life with quadriplegia, which was grounded in the logic of the virtue tradition. This tradition holds that happiness is not principally about short-term pleasure but is concerned with the

This exploratory quantitative study examined the association between religious coping and depressive symptoms among a sample of 216 Black Americans living with HIV (BALWH) in the Southeastern United States. Descriptive analyses and multiple linear regression were used to determine statistically significant associations between religious coping styles and depressive symptoms, and to investigate the

The present study aims to understand the roles of religious fundamentalism and collective narcissism in predicting extreme behavior. It was hypothesized that religious fundamentalism may enhance collective narcissism and that this would in turn increase the tendency to endorse extreme behavior. It was also anticipated that perceptions of social tightness would moderate the indirect effect of religious

This article reports 7 studies showing that God primes inhibit self-concept accessibility. Study 1A provided the first supportive evidence using undergraduate samples. Study 1B replicated the findings using working adult participants. Study 2A to 2C showed that the inhibitory effect of the God concept on implicit self-concepts was not due to concepts related to love, power, hope, religion, devil, and

The majority of young adults express a religious affiliation. Most widely-practiced religions have some proscriptions against excessive drinking and/or drunkenness. Yet many religious college students engage in drinking in excess of these proscriptions, albeit at lower levels than non-religious students. At present, virtually no empirically-evaluated brief interventions in this population have directly

This study considers relational meanings and processes associated with parents’ desire to pass on their religious faith to their children while also honoring their children’s personal religious choices. In a non-clinical sample of religious families, we explored meanings related to the significance of faith transmission and children’s agency to parents in addition to processes related to religious

God representations are complex and there is no standard, relatively short, and easy to administer measure reflecting both anthropomorphic and abstract representations of God. We developed a new measure with five dimensions: Limitless, Authoritarian, Mystical, Benevolent, and Ineffable (the LAMBI scale). In Study 1, we used exploratory factor analysis to examine the factor structure of a preliminary

The purpose of this study was to determine the association between religion, spirituality, and mental health among gay and bisexual men (GBM). A U.S. national sample of 1,071 GBM completed an online survey that measured demographic characteristics, religiosity, religious coping, spirituality, and four mental health constructs (i.e., depressive symptoms, rejection sensitivity, resilience, and social

Sexism has deep roots in human history, including most religious traditions. Many religious organizations and traditions, including Judeo-Christian beliefs, subtly approve of and espouse sexism. Previous research has detailed how religiosity and sexism, particularly benevolent sexism, are positively

Using secondary survey data from a national representative sample of Italian adult residents (N = 5,863, age range = 18–74 years, 54% females), this study aimed to test linear and nonlinear associations between religiosity and attitudes toward immigrants (i.e., xenophobia and tolerance) and examine moderating mechanisms of sociodemographic variables (i.e., age, gender, education, birth country, parental

The Daily Spiritual Experiences Scale (DSES; Underwood & Teresi, 2002) has been used in hundreds of investigations to study the role of everyday spiritual experiences in the lives of the Not Religious nor Spiritual (NRS), Spiritual but Not Religious (SNR), and Religious and Spiritual (RS). However, there is a lack of measurement equivalence/invariance (ME/I) evidence to support the use of the DSES

Implications & Conclusions Theme 1: Religion Exacerbated Financial Stress Concept 1a: Religion increased financial obligations. John (male, Amish Mennonite): “We moved to Ireland 20 years ago to bring the Gospel to the Irish people. . . . We could’ve probably had a lot more money if we had stayed in the States and built the business that we had going then, but we felt . . . [that] if there is a way

This study aims to examine the relative contribution of religious identity, social support, social connectedness, and perceived discrimination on psychological well-being (PWB) among Middle Eastern (ME) migrants in Australia. This cross-sectional study was conducted within Queensland, Australia. A total of 382 first-generation young adult ME migrants, aged 20–39 years, filled out a self-administered

This study aimed to validate a Religious Collective Self-Esteem Scale (RCSES) that assesses children’s evaluations and judgments about their belonging to a religious group. The RCSES includes 3 subscales: Private Religious Self-Esteem (PrRSE), Public Religious Self-Esteem (PuRSE), and Importance to Religious Identity (RI). Data were gathered from students in 39 primary schools (9 Reformed Protestant

The effects of spirituality and youth relationships with others on internalizing, externalizing, and adaptive outcomes were examined in a sample of 159 youth between the ages of 8 and 21 in foster or residential care. Indirect effects of direct coping and perceived social support on the relations between these factors and youth outcomes were examined. Preliminary analyses indicated a significant relation

Objective There is widespread literature linking church attendance to physical health. However, little is known about the association of church attendance and the immune system, particularly during difficult life transitions. This study investigated the association between church attendance and CMV herpes-virus latency by assessing Cytomegalovirus (CMV) IgG antibody titers among bereaved and non-bereaved

Research links intrinsic religiousness to less prejudice toward Black people and greater prejudice toward gay people. We examined longitudinally in a sample of 865 adolescents three variables that might serve as a mediator of attitudes toward Black people yet produce a suppression effect in attitudes toward gay people: (a) humanitarian values, (b) favorable evaluations of social groups, and (c) socially

The notion of spirituality is increasingly prominent in academic and cultural discourse alike. However, it remains a nebulous concept, capable of diverse interpretations, particularly cross-culturally. In the interest of exploring this diversity, yet also with the aim of identifying common themes, an enquiry was conducted into conceptualizations of spirituality across cultures. Specifically, the enquiry

Quest-religious orientation among church leaders signifies a style of leadership committed to religious explorations more than to religious certainties. For this study, we set out to explore the extent to which quest orientation among a sample of 1,265 religious church leaders who participated in the 2011 Australian National Church Life Survey was a function of psychological predisposition, conceptualized

This study investigated the moderating role of religiosity in the relationship between body-mass index (BMI) and body image in Iranian women. A convenience sample of 1,000 Iranian women (Mage = 41 years) voluntarily participated in the study and responded to a set of questions that measured the constructs of religiosity and body image, as well as questions on demographic and physiological characteristics

Faith leaders who are working to promote justice and healing in Colombia might confront stressful circumstances that challenge their spiritual meaning systems and limit ministry-related quality of life. However, whether focusing on domestic or international samples, research has not examined potential effects of spiritual struggles on ministry-related quality of life. In total, 166 faith leaders who

Religion’s impact on society cannot be overestimated. In the multireligious country of India, it is prevalent in the micro-level interactions and practices of commoners and the macro-level strategies and policies of political parties. Religion thus holds power to make or break societal structures and practices. This article investigates the role of religion in the lives of widows living in Vrindavan

The purpose of the present research is to evaluate the sources of variation across family members’ cognitive representation of deity figure(s) via social relations modeling (SRM). Using SRM, this study identifies the degree to which family members’ beliefs about the deity are due to differences in the reporting member (actor effects), the member being perceived (partner effects), or the uniqueness

Poetic and mystical consciousness may be related, and transliminality may be a thread that ties mystical with poetic but not with religious experience. In the present project, Iranian poets and nonpoets responded to measures of mystical experience, transliminality, religious commitment, and psychological adjustment. Poets scored higher on mystical experience and transliminality, but not on measures

Although a great deal has been learned about the perceived attributes of God, systematic research on the cognitive structure of deity representations is lacking. Because extant research focuses almost exclusively on the Christian God, the present studies investigate the representation of deities in a polytheistic religion, Hinduism. Prototype theory informs 4 studies on how conceptualizations of Gods

Spiritual well-being is increasingly recognized as a distinctive, important, and cross-cultural concept in quality of life assessment. The Spiritual Quality of Life-9 subscale (SQOL-9) of the World Health Organization’s Quality of Life Spirituality, Religiousness, and Personal Beliefs brief instrument (WHOQOL-SRPB BREF) was designed to facilitate cross-cultural assessment of SQOL among people who are

Work, when stressful, can be dispiriting. There are bidirectional and longitudinal links between occupational stress and depressive symptoms. Also, higher levels of religious participation are associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms and work distress. Some have argued that religious participation is a proxy for social support, rather than an independent variable. In order to study the independent

Three studies (N = 1,389) investigate how attitudes toward the environment and climate change may be informed by stewardship beliefs (care for the Earth as a sacred religious duty) or dominion beliefs (God-given dominance over nature). Pro-environmental measures were positively associated with stewardship belief and negatively associated with dominion belief, moderated by religiosity (Study 1). When

Religious behavior and spirituality are associated with a variety of positive youth outcomes including higher levels of academic achievement and community service, and lower levels of illicit substance use. However, few studies have investigated whether religious behavior and spirituality are uniquely and interactively associated with adolescent outcomes or whether religious behavior and spirituality

There is only a limited amount of research in the area of the spiritual beliefs of adolescents. The aim of our study was to explore the spiritual beliefs of adolescents from nonreligious families. We focused not only on the content of these beliefs but also on their sources and their individual importance in adolescents’ lives. To explore this issue, we conducted a qualitative research study based

Qualitative family scholar Kerry Daly has called for more theory addressing understudied dimensions including religion, everyday experiences, and time. Herein we address all three of these dimensions as we empirically examine and theorize on relational struggles among religious families. We also explore what we term experiential immediacy—defined as the personal and temporal proximity to participant-reported

The Multi-Faith Religious Support Scale-Adolescent (MFRSS-A) was psychometrically assessed with Christian adolescents (N = 500, ages 12–19). Then, relationships between religious support and emotional functioning were examined. The MFRSS-A was adapted from the adult scale (MFRSS; Bjorck & Maslim, 2011). It includes 3 subscales respectively measuring support from adolescents’ God concept, their religious

Mounting evidence suggests that modern globalization is reshaping the lives of young people around the globe. Strikingly little is known, though, about how globalization affects young people’s orientations toward religion. In the current study, 40 Thai adolescents—divided across variously globalized settings—took part in individual interviews and completed questionnaires on their religious practices

Moderation and mediation models of the relation between religiosity and effortful control as predictors of problem behavior and aggression were assessed in this study of 237 16-year-old Muslim Indonesian adolescents. Adolescents reported their engagement in behavior required and recommended by their religion and their effortful control using the Early Adolescent Temperament Scale. Adolescents self-reported

This mixed-methods exploratory study examined the psychological salience of religiosity and spirituality in a sample of young people (ages 16–21, Mage = 18.9 years; SD = 1.36) from New Zealand. Participants completed a cross-sectional online questionnaire with both qualitative and quantitative questions that assessed subjective perceptions of religion and spirituality and theoretically linked social

The current study examined the unique and combined roles of spirituality and religious identity formation processes on ethnocultural empathy among Italian youth. Spirituality was conceptualized as a desire for self-transcendence. Ethnocultural empathy entails concern for those of other cultural backgrounds. It was hypothesized that spirituality would predict ethnocultural empathy indirectly by way

Building on the ideological-conflict hypothesis, we argue that, beyond the religion-prejudice association, there should exist an irreligion-prejudice association toward groups perceived as actively opposing the values of nonbelievers (antiliberal targets) or even as simply being ideologically different: religionists of mainstream religions. Collecting data from three secularized Western European countries

Religion's relationship to volunteering has been widely studied, with the majority of research indicating that religious service attendance matters more in motivating volunteering behavior than subjective religiosity. However, research has not adequately examined the complex interplay of these facets of religiosity in a comprehensive longitudinal framework, looking at both inter- and intraindividual

When someone says she believes that God exists, is she expressing the same kind of mental state as when she says she thinks that a lake bigger than Lake Michigan exists⎯i.e., does she refer to the same kind of cognitive attitude in both cases? Using evidence from linguistic corpora (Study 1) and behavioral experiments (Studies 2-4), the current work provides evidence that individuals typically use

This preliminary study explored the role of relationship with God in couples’ adjustment to the threat of breast cancer. Women and their partners were assessed on positive and negative relationship with God, perceived and received couple support, and depression and marital adjustment prior to the women receiving their biopsy results. Analyses were conducted on women and partners separately to evaluate

Recent research on the salutogenic benefits of spirituality and religiosity has yielded inconsistent findings. It is suggested that such discrepancies reflect individual differences in personality, but this cannot be investigated with variable-driven approaches. The present study measured the influence of personality on the relationship between spirituality and existential well-being (EWB) from the

Religion is often seen as one of the main causes of extremist violence, such as suicide attacks. Because empirical studies analyzing this purported relationship are scarce, we investigated how religious practices and attitudes, perceived threat, and demographic variables contribute to support for extremist violence. We analyzed multinational face-to-face interview data for native Muslims with a final

Life-changing religious and spiritual experiences shape people’s lives and form a central part of the autobiographical narratives of many Americans. As such, they have been key phenomena of interest among social scientists. However, the likelihood of individuals experiencing life-changing religious or spiritual experience across diverse faith traditions has yet to be studied. The current study explores

Religiousness has a long-standing presence in the research literature on intolerance. However, religiousness is minimally represented in the interpersonal violence myth (IPVM) literature. IPVMs comprise an aspect of the broader construct of intolerance. We heeded the call to address research on tradition-specific religious beliefs and IPVMs. As such, we examined select Christian beliefs about Divine–human

Psychological entitlement is a stable personality trait known to predict a range of concerning outcomes in people’s lives. Recent research has suggested that entitlement might have domain-specific manifestations such as romantic entitlement, academic entitlement, and sexual entitlement. The present work sought to examine such a domain specific manifestation in the religious and spiritual realm. This

Traumatic events can have ripple effects on the survivor’s intimate relationships and on his or her religious/spirituality (R/S) beliefs and practices. Although both of these outcomes have been examined independently, research has yet to consider the intersection of trauma, its impacts on partners and intimate relationships, and R/S. This exploratory qualitative study involved individual interviews

Previous studies have suggested that specific features of religion such as religious denomination and level of religiosity might influence the severity of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) and the occurrence of obsessive–compulsive (OC) cognitions, whereas others could not confirm these findings. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the relation between religion, OCD, and the occurrence of

Research on religious coping has proliferated in recent years, but many key questions remain, including the independent effects of positive and negative religious coping styles on well-being over time. Further, little research on religious coping styles has been conducted with African Americans in spite of their documented importance in this population. The present study examined the independent prospective

The growing non-religious minority remains among the most distrusted groups in America. We examined how non-religious individuals experience microaggressions—subtle prejudicial verbal and behavioral acts. U.S. participants who self-identified as being non-religious (N = 1,485) were recruited to develop and validate a Microaggressions Against Non-religious Individuals Scale (MANRIS). Items from MANRIS

To get beyond the solely negative identities signaled by atheism and agnosticism, we have to conceptualize an object of study that includes religions and nonreligions. We advocate a shift from “religions” to “worldviews” and define worldviews in terms of the human ability to ask and reflect on “big questions” (BQs; e.g., what exists? how should we live?). From a worldviews perspective, atheism, agnosticism

Greater attention to secular and nonreligious individuals has provided much-needed balance as well as alternative interpretations of commonly held assumptions regarding religiosity/spirituality (R/S). Contrary to the theory that R/S provides unique benefits in areas such as prosociality and mental health, analogous secular mechanisms exist. The conflation of effects attributed to R/S together with

This article offers an affirmative construal of atheism: the attempt to make sense of the world with naturalist explanations and to act sensibly in society following secularist principles (i.e., without relying on supernatural agents or complying with supernatural authorities). After briefly describing the conceptual framework behind this positive conception of a nonreligious worldview, we outline

Prior research, using correlational and self-report methodologies, suggests that religion and public welfare function as alternate security/insurance systems. Consequently, in countries with more expansive public welfare systems people report less religiosity. The present studies expand this field by utilizing experimental methodology and by replicating and extending two previous experiments in both

Is nontheistic sanctification, nontheistic enough? In other words, does sanctification theory (Pargament & Mahoney, 2005) extend far enough to adequately include the full range of religious and spiritual expressions located under the nontheistic category? To address this question, results are applied from a qualitative study, using a narrative phenomenological approach to examine how nature is sanctified

Prior research exploring differences in religiousness (and/or secularity) between parents and their teenage children suggests that there are not substantial differences, with differences increasing during emerging adulthood. However, previous efforts to examine differences in religiousness between parents and their teenage children have relied upon single-item measures, have used self-reported differences

Research exploring nonbelievers’ reasons for not believing in the existence of god(s) has focused on theory development. Such efforts are valuable, but may not capture the lived experiences of nonbelievers. The current two studies quantitatively examined nonbelievers’ self-reported reasons for nonbelief through developing the Reasons of Atheists and Agnostics for Nonbelief in God’s Existence Scale

A prominent class of metaphors depicts that which is sacred (God, a spiritual path) in terms of lightness rather than darkness. Metaphors of this type should have systematic implications for religious cognition according to conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) and a new extension of this theory termed balanced CMT. Five studies (total N = 761) derived predictions from these models and then tested them

Humility is a central virtue of many world religions. In this paper, we explored whether religious and nonreligious individuals conceptualize and respond to humility differently. In Study 1, we surveyed 361 students and found that religious participants described themselves as more humble than nonreligious participants. In Study 2, we studied community members in 2 samples (N = 180, Sample A; N = 112

Recent theorists have argued that theistic cognitions are so deeply embedded in human cultures that nearly all people experience implicit religious thoughts, even those who consider themselves as atheists or agnostics. This study aimed to evaluate the validity of a Catholic Faith Single Category Implicit Association Test (CF SC-IAT; Karpinski & Steinman, 2006), the degree of implicit–explicit dissociation