Work and Women’s Well-being: Religion and Age as Moderators

Religion has been found to moderate the stress–strain relationship. This moderator role, however, may be dependent on age. The present study tested for the three-way interaction between work experience, age, and religiosity in the prediction of women’s well-being, and predicted that work experience and religiosity will combine additively in older women, while in younger women religiosity is predicted to moderate the relationship between work experience and well-being. In a sample of 389 married Malay Muslim women, results of the regression analyses showed significant three-way interactions between work experience, age, and religiosity in the prediction of well-being (measured by distress symptoms and life satisfaction). While in younger women the results were in line with the predictions made, in the older women, both additive and moderator effects of religiosity were observed, depending on the well-being measures used. These results are discussed in relation to the literature on work and family, with specific reference to women’s age, religion, as well as the issue of stress–strain specificity.     

Dwelling in the Nearness of Gods: The Hermeneutical Turn from M<Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">ou</Emphasis> Zongsan to T<Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">u</Emphasis> Weiming

This article argues that, as far as the problem of Confucian religiosity is concerned, there is an interpretative turn from Mou Zongsan’s moral metaphysics to Tu Weiming’s religious hermeneutics. Some concluding remarks are made: First, Tu’s hermeneutics is rooted in the ontology of self as interrelatedness, which is completely different from Mou’s theory of true self as transcendental subjectivity. Second, Tu’s hermeneutics of self can be better illuminated with the help of Heidegger’s notion of Dasein as Being-with (Mitsein). For Tu and Heidegger, self cannot be seen as something separate from community. This article also points out that the paradigmatic shift is evidenced in another similarity between the four categories of self, community, nature, and the transcendent in Tu’s hermeneutics on the one hand, and the four symbols of earth, sky, divinities, and mortals employed by Heidegger to interpret the meaning of dwelling, on the other. In such a primordial situation of dwelling, gods are not supposed to be intellectually known; they are rather to be neighbors in community.     

Religiosity and attitudes towards professional mental health services: analysing religious coping as a mediator among Mexican origin Latinas/os in the southwest United States

In this study, we examined the relationship between religiosity and attitudes towards professional mental health services. We further examined whether internal religious coping and external religious coping mediated both relationships. Results indicated a significant association with religiosity and negative attitudes towards mental health services, as well as external religious coping and internal religious coping. Results also showed a nonsignificant association with both religious coping and negative attitudes towards mental health services. Finally, external religious coping mediated the relationship between religiosity and negative attitudes towards mental health services for men but not for women.     

Exploring two approaches to an existential function of religiosity in mental health

Recent research demonstrates beneficial associations between religiosity and measures of mental health. In this study, we examined whether religiosity benefits mental health (a) by limiting the negative impact of existential concerns, and (b) by enhancing purpose in life. Three hundred fifty-three undergraduates completed the following measures: Scale for Existential Thinking, Purpose in Life Test, Religiousness Measure, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale – Revised, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, and the Drug, Alcohol, and Nicotine Scale. We hypothesised that religiosity scores moderate the relationship between existential thinking and mental health, and purpose in life scores mediate the relationship between religiosity and mental health. Religiosity did not moderate the relationships between existential thinking and these outcomes, however, purpose in life scores mediated the relationships of religiosity with depression and anxiety, but not with substance use. Our findings confirm the significance of existential concerns and purpose in life in the religiosity-mental health connection.     

Religiousness and obsessive-compulsive cognitions and symptoms in an Italian population

Fifty-four individuals with a high degree of religiosity, 47 with a medium degree of religiosity and 64 with low religiosity completed anonymously the Italian versions of well-established measures of obsessive-compulsive (OC) cognitions and symptoms, depression and anxiety. After controlling for anxiety and depression, religious groups scored higher than individuals with a low degree of religiosity on measures of obsessionality, overimportance of thoughts, control of thoughts, perfectionism and responsibility. Moreover, measures of control of thoughts and overimportance of thoughts were associated with OC symptoms only in religious subjects. It is concluded that religion might play a role in obsessive-compulsive disorder phenomenology. Additional research is warranted because it is plausible that only a few aspects of religious teachings (e.g., inflexibility and prohibition) are linked to OC phenomena.     

Free to blame? Belief in free will is related to victim blaming

The more people believe in free will, the harsher their punishment of criminal offenders. A reason for this finding is that belief in free will leads individuals to perceive others as responsible for their behavior. While research supporting this notion has mainly focused on criminal offenders, the perspective of the victims has been neglected so far. We filled this gap and hypothesized that individuals’ belief in free will is positively correlated with victim blaming—the tendency to make victims responsible for their bad luck. In three studies, we found that the more individuals believe in free will, the more they blame victims. Study 3 revealed that belief in free will is correlated with victim blaming even when controlling for just world beliefs, religious worldviews, and political ideology. The results contribute to a more differentiated view of the role of free will beliefs and attributed intentions.     

Religiosity and the formulation of causal attributions

Researchers have suggested that religious individuals engage primarily in intuitive over analytic processing. We investigated a connection between specific aspects of religiosity and the attribution of causation to social and physical events. College undergraduates completed measures of religiosity online and were asked to determine the causes of events that varied in type, outcome, and likelihood, as well as the personality characteristics of the protagonist. Individuals with greater intrinsic religious orientation, fundamentalism, who viewed God as loving, who were more dogmatic, and had an external locus of control were more likely to attribute supernatural phenomena to events compared to those lower in those traits. Supernatural causation was invoked more often when the character of the protagonist and the outcome of social event matched in valence (both positive or both negative) than when they did not match (e.g., character positive, outcome negative). Individuals low and high in religiosity showed similar reasoning, but individuals higher in religiosity were more likely to attribute supernatural causes for positive outcomes and characters in physical scenarios, consistent with their view of God as benevolent.     

Connection,Action, and Hope: an Invitation to reclaim the “Spiritual” in Health Care

The complex process of health has, until recently, been understood devoid of a spiritual component. The present article offers a model of health inclusive of spirituality with implications for the health communication field. Amending the assumptive non-relevance of spirituality to individual health, a growing body of scholarship in various disciplines recognizes the ways in which spirituality connects to overall wellness. As a whole, this literature equates spirituality with seeking, striving, and forward movement. Given the potential for health communication scholars to make significant contributions at the forefront of this research, this article proposes a dynamic model of health inclusive not only of the physical and mental, but of the spiritual as well. Recognizing its centrality to wellbeing, the model locates the spiritual self at the center. Specifically, the spiritual self is described as engaging action, hope, and connection to self, others, and/or the universe.     

Religiosity and psychological well-being

The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between religiosity and psychological well-being in a sample of Greek Orthodox Christians. Previous research has documented that personal devotion, participation in religious activities, and religious salience are positively associated with different criteria of psychological well-being. The sample (83 men and 280 women) with an age range from 18 to 48 years, was strongly skewed with respect to sex (77% female) and education level (95% were university students or university graduates). Religiosity was operationalized as church attendance, frequency of prayer and belief salience. In addition, a single item referring to beliefs about God was used. Depression, anxiety, loneliness, and general life satisfaction were selected as dependent variables because they reflect important dimensions of psychological well-being. Preliminary analyses showed that sex was significantly related to the three religiosity variables (church attendance, frequency of prayer, belief salience), with women being more religious than men. Consistent with previous research, correlations suggested that church attendance and belief salience were associated with better life satisfaction. The results of hierarchical regression analysis showed a significant positive association between anxiety and frequency of personal prayer. Finally, personal beliefs about God did not seem to relate to any of the psychological well-being measures. The results of the present study partially support the hypothesized association between religiosity and psychological well-being.     

Religiosity enhances emotion and deontological choice in moral dilemmas

While early psychological theories debated the relation between religiosity and moral decision making, more recent work approached this relation on empirical grounds using multidimensional measures of religiosity and moral dilemmas. The present study investigated the influence of individual differences in religious thoughts and feelings, social desirability and mood on emotions and decisions in moral dilemmas that pit social welfare against harming another person. In order to increase emotional salience, moral dilemmas were framed as personal choices. Results indicated that the tendency to seek religious guidance in everyday life, and social desirability positively predicted deontological choices (i.e., refusing to harm one person in order to save several people). In addition, individual differences in religious feelings positively predicted negative emotion presence in these moral dilemmas. These results highlight the motivational and emotional dimensions of religiosity that influence moral choice and emotional experience in moral dilemmas.