Religious Doubts and Sleep Quality: Findings from a Nationwide Study of Presbyterians #090709revised

A growing literature examines the correlates and sequelae of spiritual struggles, such as religious doubts. To date, however, this literature has focused primarily on a handful of mental health outcomes (e.g., symptoms of depression, anxiety, negative affect), while the possible links with other aspects of health and well-being, such as poor or disrupted sleep, have received much less attention. After reviewing relevant theory and previous studies, we analyze data from a nationwide sample of Presbyterian Church (USA) members to test the hypothesis that religious doubts will be inversely associated with overall self-rated sleep quality, and positively associated with the frequency of sleep problems and the use of sleep medications. We also hypothesize that part of this association will be explained by the link between religious doubts and psychological distress. Results offer moderate but consistent support for these predictions. We end with a discussion of the implications of these findings, a brief mention of study limitations, and some suggestions for future research.     

Predictors of spiritual struggles: an exploratory study

The purpose of the current study was to identify factors that predict spiritual struggles. It was hypothesised that factors from religious (e.g., God image, attachment to God, church attitudes, religious history), personal (e.g., neuroticism, pessimism, trait anger), social (e.g., social support, loneliness), and situational (e.g., negative appraisals) domains may predispose people to spiritual struggles during times of distress. Participants (309 undergraduate students) filled out questionnaires measuring relevant constructs and a two-step hierarchical multiple regression equation was generated separately for each of the four domains. Upon identifying significant predictors from each of the four domains, a final hierarchical regression equation revealed that: (1) more negative appraisals of a stressful situation, (2) an insecure ambivalent attachment to God, and (3) neuroticism significantly predicted unique variance in spiritual struggles beyond the effects of relevant religious variables, thus generally supporting the hypothesis that spiritual struggles are complex phenomena that stem from multiple factors.     

Religious Resources,Spiritual Struggles,and Mental Health in a Nationwide Sample of PCUSA Clergy

A growing body of research explores patterns and correlates of mental health among clergy and other religious professionals. Our study augments this work by distinguishing between religious resources (i.e., support from church members, positive religious coping practices), and spiritual struggles (i.e., troubled relations with God, negative interactions with members, chronic religious doubts). We also explore several conceptual models of the interplay between these positive and negative religious domains and stressful life events. After reviewing theory and research on religious resources, spiritual struggles, and mental health, we test relevant hypotheses using data on a nationwide sample of ordained clergy members in the Presbyterian Church (USA). At least some support is found for all main effects hypotheses. Religious resources predict well-being more strongly, while spiritual struggles are more closely linked with psychological distress. There is some evidence that stressful life events erode mental health by fostering an elevated sense of spiritual disarray and struggle. We find limited support for the stress-buffering role of religious resources, and limited evidence for a stress-exacerbating effect of spiritual struggle. Study limitations are identified, along with a number of implications and promising directions for future research.     

Anxiety Predicts Increases in Struggles with Religious/Spiritual Doubt Over Two Weeks,One Month,and One Year

Struggles with religious/spiritual (r/s) doubt occur when uncertainty, questions, and hesitancy about aspects of r/s beliefs and experiences become a source of conflict. Cross-sectional research suggests that doubt-related struggles correlate with anxiety, yet no studies have investigated the temporal patterning of the associations between these constructs. We employed three large samples (Ns = 268, 527, 292) to examine concurrent and prospective associations between struggles with r/s doubt and anxiety over three time frames: 2 weeks, 1 month, and 1 year. Analyses revealed that (a) each construct exhibited high cross-temporal stability; (b) there were moderate, positive concurrent associations between anxiety and doubt-related struggles; (c) anxiety predicted increases in doubt-related struggles over each time frame; and (d) there was mixed evidence regarding whether doubt-related struggles predicted changes in anxiety over time. The discussion focuses on how anxiety may begin to undermine confidence in one’s r/s worldview, thus destabilizing one’s r/s beliefs.     

An Empirical Examination of Religious/Spiritual Struggle Among Israeli Jews

The current investigation examined the prevalence, predictors, and psychological implications of religious and spiritual (r/s) struggles among a sample of Israeli-Jewish university students. R/s struggle was assessed by the Religious and Spiritual Struggles (RSS) Scale. This is a newly constructed scale that assesses a wide array of r/s struggles. The RSS is composed of six factors of struggles: Divine, Doubt, Demonic, Interpersonal, Moral, and Ultimate Meaning. Confirmatory factor analysis of the RSS in this study confirmed this six-factor structure. Of the 164 Jewish participants, between 1.2% and 30.5% experienced various r/s struggles. Beliefs in a cruel God and distant God, religious participation, and fundamentalism predicted higher levels of different types of struggle. All six forms of struggle were correlated with greater psychological distress. In regression equations including r/s struggles and demographic and religious variables, Moral struggles predicted lower life satisfaction, Divine struggles predicted depressive symptoms, and both Divine and Doubt struggles predicted generalized anxiety. Possible explanations and implications of the findings are offered. We conclude by pointing to the limitations of the study and suggesting a few directions for future research.     

Sifting Through Tradition: The Creation of Jewish Feminist Identities

In recent decades, feminists have been questioning patriarchal religions. As a result, many find themselves ambivalent about their religious and spiritual identities. This paper presents a model of identity formation that addresses the processes by which potentially conflicted identities are integrated. This model is based on research about how women who identify themselves as both Jewish and feminist create unconflicted Jewish feminist identities. Through a process ofsifting through their available options, they have chosen to identify with only those aspects of Judaism and feminism that satisfy their feminist, religious, and perhaps most importantly, their spiritual, needs. Because these needs vary, what it means to be a Jewish feminist is not static. Three types of Jewish feminist identity—inclusionist, transformationist, and reinterpretationist—are identified.     

Prevalence,Predictors, and Implications of Religious/Spiritual Struggles Among Muslims

The current investigation explored prevalence, predictors, and psychological implications of religious and spiritual (r/s) struggles among an Israeli‐Palestinian, Muslim sample. R/s struggle was assessed by the Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale (Exline et al. 2014), a newly developed scale that assesses a wide array of r/s struggles. Factor analysis of the scale in this study revealed five factors of struggle: Divine and Doubt, Punitive Entities, Interpersonal, Moral, and Ultimate Meaning. Of the 139 Muslim participants, between 1.4 percent and 40.2 percent experienced various r/s struggles. Positive God image and fundamentalism predicted lower levels of struggle, whereas negative God image and universality predicted higher levels of struggle. After controlling for religious variables, we found that both depressive symptoms and generalized anxiety were predicted by Punitive Entities and Ultimate Meaning struggles, while satisfaction with life was predicted by Interpersonal struggle. Possible explanations and implications of the findings are offered, and the limitations of the study are discussed.     

Challenges of Being Simultaneously Gay or Lesbian and Spiritual and/or Religious: A Narrative Perspective

The purpose of this article is to describe the struggle that gays and lesbians face as they incorporate their sexual orientation and identity within the context of an existing religious or spiritual identity. An overview of the religious and spiritual context that makes individuals unique will be followed by how the narrative perspective can help individuals who identify themselves as gay or lesbian with their struggle for identity. Finally, new narrative directions will be suggested for marriage and family therapists and their work with gays and lesbians who are confronted with these issues.     

Spiritual,Religious, Nonspiritual,and Nonreligious Narratives in Marginalized Older Adults: A Typology of Coping Styles

SUMMARY

Narrative therapy is an important tool in the phenomenological framing of life events with older clients. Seventy-nine older adults who lived independently in four subsidized high-rise housing facilities in Chicago were interviewed in a research project about managing life challenges. Cases represent four types in a spiritual-religious typology: religious and spiritual, religious only, spiritual only, and neither religious nor spiritual (Zinnbauer, 1997). This article explores how older adults managed adversity and maintained a sense of self-efficacy. Findings indicate that older adults use many references to religion and spirituality in their narratives, either embracing these domains or defining themselves in contrast to them. Narrative therapy suggests that the implications of religious and spiritual resources addressed in client stories may reinforce coping capacity and promote aging well.     

Early trauma and serious mental illness: what role does spirituality play?

For many who experience serious mental illness, spirituality and religion can be common vehicles that provide a sense of coherence and meaning to life. However, in the presence of early trauma, spiritual and religious beliefs may be enhanced or destroyed, or never develop. This paper explores the relationship between spirituality/religion, early trauma, and serious mental illness. Three case examples from a qualitative phenomenological study are presented to illustrate spiritual and religious struggles that can arise and how a person can work through these over time to use spirituality and religion as positive resources for recovery. Tentative implications for practice are offered.     

Unusual but sound minds: Mental health indicators in spiritual individuals

Previous research has linked certain types of modern spirituality, including New Age and Pagan, with either benign schizotypy or insecure attachment. While the first view emphasizes a positive aspect of spiritual believers’ mental health (benign schizotypy), the second view emphasizes a negative aspect, namely the unhealthy emotional compensation associated with an insecure attachment style. This study addresses these two conflicting views by comparing a sample of modern spiritual individuals (N = 114) with a contrast group of traditional religious believers (N = 86). Measures of schizotypy and attachment style were combined with mental health scales of anxiety and depression. We further assessed death anxiety to determine whether modern spiritual beliefs fulfilled a similar function as traditional religious beliefs in the reduction of existential threat. Our results support a psychological contiguity between traditional and modern spiritual believers and reinforce the need to de‐stigmatize spiritual ideas and experiences. Using hierarchical regression, we showed that unusual experiences and ideas are the major predictor of engagement in modern spiritual practices. Anxiety, depression variables, and insecure attachment were not significant predictors of spirituality or correlated with them; on the other hand, the results show that spiritual believers report high social support satisfaction and this variable predicts involvement in modern spirituality. Further, spiritual practices were negatively correlated with and negatively predicted by death anxiety scores. Overall, the results strengthen the association between modern spirituality, good mental health, and general well‐being.     

Spiritual Struggles and Health: Assessing the Influence of Socioeconomic Status

Growing evidence suggests that spiritual struggles may play a major role in explaining the relationship between religion and health. Even so, there are significant gaps in the literature. More specifically, researchers do not know enough about how spiritual struggles arise in the first place. This study has two major goals. The first is to see whether socioeconomic status is associated with spiritual struggles. The second is to see whether spiritual struggles are associated with physical health. A conceptual model is tested that contains the following core hypotheses: (1) individuals with lower levels of educational attainment are more likely to encounter chronic economic difficulties; (2) people who experience ongoing financial strain are more likely to live in rundown neighborhoods; (3) people who live in dilapidated neighborhoods will be more angry than their well‐to‐do counterparts; (4) people who are more angry will, in turn, be more likely to experience spiritual struggles; and (5) greater spiritual struggles will be associated with more symptoms of physical illness. Data from a recent nationwide survey (N = 2,146) provide empirical support for each hypothesis.     

Exploring Daily Religious/Spiritual Activities Among Older Couples: Religious/Spiritual Influence Moderating the Effects of Health Symptoms on Marital Interactions

Using data from 191 later-life couples across 14 days, patterns of husband and wife religious/spiritual activities were explored, as well as how those activities predicted daily marital processes and how they moderated the links between daily physical symptoms and marital interactions. Husband and wife reports of religious/spiritual influence were linked with their own positive and negative marital interactions (“actor” effects). However, only husband religious/spiritual influence was linked with wife marital interactions (“partner” effects). Religious/spiritual influence moderated the link between symptoms and marital interactions for wives. Findings suggest a buffering effect of religious/spiritual activities on daily symptoms for older married wives.     

Devoutness to Islam and the Attitudinal Acceptance of Political Violence Among Young Muslims in Germany

This article investigates the links between religious beliefs and capitalist mentalities—namely devoutness to Islam and hierarchic self‐interest (HSI)—and violence‐accepting attitudes among the young Muslim migrant population in Germany. Following a situational perspective, these links are analyzed under different individual conditions structured by (socioeconomic) precariousness and education. Based on framing approaches and concepts from socialization theory, we derive the following hypothesis: The links between religious beliefs and capitalist mentalities and the attitudinal acceptance of violence are stronger among individuals with low levels of education and a precarious economic status (compared to high education/nonprecarious status). The strongest link is expected for a negative status inconsistency (high education/precarious economic status). Structural equation models for data from a random probability sample of 350 Muslims (aged 14–32 years) in Germany indicate that attitudinal acceptance of violence among young Muslims is not predicted by devoutness to Islam but by economic precariousness and by acceptance of capitalist values of the HSI belief system.     

Distinguishing Between Self-Classified Religious and Spiritual Groups of Emerging Adult Males: Conceptual and Psychometric Challenges

This study sought to determine whether measures of religion and spirituality could discriminate between emerging adult males who self-identified as both religious and spiritual (B), religious only (R), spiritual only (S), or neither (N). Two religion measures and three spirituality measures were employed to assess the constructs. It was predicted that those who self-identify as religious only would score significantly higher on the religion measures than those who identified as spiritual only, and those that identified as spiritual only would score significantly higher on the spirituality measures than those who identified as religious only. Results supported the first hypothesis, but not the second. The relationship between spirituality and religion measures indicated substantial overlap and the possibility of differential relationships between emerging male and female adults.     

Research and Theory Religion and Spirituality in Coping With Stress

Relations among and between religion, spirituality, and the ability to cope with stress were examined using a sample of 115 graduate students in counseling. Religion and spirituality positively correlated with coping with stress. Counseling students who expressed spirituality through religious beliefs had greater spiritual health and immunity to stressful situations than counseling students who identified themselves as spiritual but not religious. Counseling students with a religious/spiritual affiliation indicated more discomfort counseling clients hostile to religion compared with counseling students with a spiritual‐only affiliation. The results have implications for preparing counseling students to work with clients with religious/spiritual issues.     

Spirituality,spiritual sensibility and human growth

While notions of spirituality, spiritual experience and spiritual development seem much neglected in the literature of modern analytical philosophy, such terminology continues to be current in both common usage and religious contexts. This author has previously taken issue with some recent attempts to develop (educational and other professional) conceptions of spirituality and spiritual experience as substantially independent of religious attachment. Notwithstanding this, the present paper considers whether such a ‘religiously-untethered’ notion of spirituality, spiritual experience or sensibility might yet be sustainable in terms of two key criteria: (1) as a capacity for non-instrumental perspectives on, or interpretations of, the world of ordinary experience; and (2) as a corresponding capacity to identify goals and values that transcend or are not reducible to the meeting of immediate natural or material—either individual or social—needs.     

Religious Coping Among the Religious: The Relationships Between Religious Coping and Well-Being in a National Sample of Presbyterian Clergy, Elders, and Members

This study examined whether the relationships between religious coping and well-being are moderated by the salience of religion to the individual's identity and social roles. As part of a national survey of Presbyterians, 1,260 clergy, 823 elders, and 735 members completed measures of demographic variables, global religiousness, life stressors, positive and negative religious coping, and well-being (positive affect, depressive affect, religious satisfaction). Our predictions were largely confirmed. First, clergy reported higher levels of positive religious coping than elders, who, in turn, indicated more positive religious coping than members. Second, positive and negative religious coping were associated with higher and lower levels of well-being respectively. Finally, positive and negative religious coping were more strongly related to well-being for clergy than for members. Furthermore, the drawbacks of negative religious coping for the clergy were not offset completely by the benefits of positive religious coping. Longitudinal studies of the longer term implications of positive and negative religious coping are clearly warranted. The results also suggest the need for supportive and educational services to help clergy draw on their religious coping resources and come to terms with their spiritual struggles.     

Do Spiritual Struggles Predict Poorer Physical/Mental Health Among Jews?

Although spirituality and religion are generally associated with higher levels of physical and mental well-being, spiritual struggles, which involve tension in regard to spiritual issues, have been identified as a risk factor for poorer physical and mental health, especially among individuals with greater levels of personal religiousness. However, studies in this area have utilized predominantly Christian samples and the importance of spiritual struggles to Jews is not known. We proposed and tested two competing models in an adult Jewish community sample: (a) the Universal Effects model in which spiritual struggles were proposed to be associated with decreased levels of physical/mental health, and more problematic for more religious Jews, and (b) the Differential Effects model in which spiritual struggles were proposed to be generally unrelated to the physical/mental health of Jews, and even less impactful on religious Jews. We found some support for both models. Spiritual struggles were modestly associated with lower levels of physical/mental health in the sample as a whole, even after controlling for demographic covariates. However, at the highest levels of spiritual struggle, Orthodox Jews exhibited an increase in physical and mental health whereas non-Orthodox Jews' health continued to decrease.     

Spiritual struggles and compassion: the positive side of moral concerns

A large body of research has focused on the negative consequences associated with spiritual struggles, with little consideration to the potential positive aspects of these experiences. To fill this void in literature, we investigated the relationship between spiritual struggles and state compassion using film methodology. The results of this study show that the moral concerns component of spiritual struggles is the only one that predicted feelings of compassion, and this relation was not explained by other individual differences factors. The results demonstrated that one facet of spiritual struggles can predict positive outcomes, such as compassion.