Resource loss,religiousness, health,and posttraumatic growth following Hurricane Katrina

This study examined associations among resource loss, religiousness (including general religiousness, religious comfort, and religious strain), posttraumatic growth (PTG), and physical and mental health among a sample of Mississippi university students soon after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast in 2005. Resource loss was negatively associated with health, but positively associated with PTG. Religious comfort was associated with positive outcomes, and religious strain was associated with negative outcomes. Religious comfort buffered the negative effects of resource loss on emotional health. Ancillary analyses indicated that associations between resource loss and health were mediated by religious strain. Implications of this research are described for mental health practitioners engaged in disaster recovery work.     

Religion,Religiousness, and Narrative: Decoding Women's Practices in Senegalese Islamic Reform

Martin Riesebrodt argues that his theory of religion can help explain religion's enduring power in the contemporary globalizing and secularizing world. Although he emphasizes the necessity of objective categories for theorizing religion's purpose, adherents’ narratives about their religious practices reveal lived relationships between ideal‐typical liturgical texts (which help comprise religion) and their appropriations of them for navigating rapidly changing social contexts (religiousness). The validity of Riesebrodt's approach for explaining religion in empirical settings is demonstrated by using ethnographic interviews of Muslim reformist women in Dakar, Senegal. These female adherents’ discourses on the practices of veiling, prayer, and preaching the uniqueness of God highlight the ways religion's directives operate in a dialectical relationship with a religiousness that encompasses their dual efforts to achieve closeness to God and overtly critique other Muslim groups, contemporary urban life, and the state.     

1996-2004年中国大陆儒学研究的新进展

1996-2004年,中国大陆的孔子、儒学研究持续繁荣发展,在以下八个方面上,取得了新的进展: (1)儒学与世界和平; ( 2 )儒家人文精神; ( 3 )简帛儒家文献; ( 4 )儒学宗教性问题; (5)儒学与生态伦理; (6)儒学与普世伦理; (7)儒学与文化保守主义; (8)儒学与自由主义; (9)儒学与民主、人权; (10)儒学与全球化。     

Believing literally versus symbolically: values and personality correlates among Spanish students

Values and personality correlates of general religiousness may be specific and even different when one distinguishes between Exclusion versus Inclusion of Transcendence and Literal versus Symbolic thinking on religious issues. In the present study, 133 Spanish students were administered the Schwartz Value Survey, the NEO‐PI‐R and the Post‐Critical Belief scale. Exclusion versus Inclusion of Transcendence reflected the conflict between openness to change (and hedonism) and conservation values; it was positively related to agreeableness and conscientiousness, and negatively to universalism and openness to experience. Literal versus Symbolic thinking reflected the conflict between self‐enhancement and self‐transcendence values, and was associated with high openness to experience. Results partially replicated previous studies in Belgium, with some differences that were rather in line with previous meta‐analyses. The discussion also points out cultural and contextual specifics.     

Religiousness,religious coping methods,and cognitive test anxiety among African-American college students

This study explored the roles of religiousness and religious coping methods in predicting cognitive test anxiety. A convenience sample of 121 African-American students (97 females and 24 males) ranging in age from 18 to 39 (M_age?=?20.16), attending a historically Black university completed an online questionnaire assessing demographic information, religiousness, religious coping methods, and cognitive test anxiety. Results showed that negative religious coping methods were significant factors in predicting cognitive test anxiety. These relationships may be pertinent for understanding salient factors that influence cognitive test anxiety in African-American college students.     

Development and Evaluation of the Belief Acceptance Scale

The Belief Acceptance Scale (BAS) is a nine question scale that was developed to evaluate how open and accepting an individual is to other people’s beliefs across interdependent life domains. The purposes of this article are to demonstrate the internal consistency of the BAS and examine the instrument’s substructure and to correlate the BAS with validated measures of religiosity and demographic data gathered from a web-based Survey of Spiritual Experiences. The BAS focuses on cultural beliefs instead of religious motivations and was designed to be administered to religious and non-religious individuals. Three domains of belief acceptance were tested: the internal or subjective openness to other beliefs (Psychological Domain), willingness to participate in other ideologies and rituals (Reciprocal Domain), and the willingness to date or marry outside one’s belief system or cultural background (Social Domain). Responses from 350 individuals were correlated and analysed to estimate the scale’s internal consistency and subscale structure. Analyses support the validity of the BAS scores in that they demonstrate expected correlations with demographic data and standardised measures of religiosity. The results show that the BAS is an internally consistent scale with a coherent substructure that adequately measures openness to other beliefs, ideologies and belief systems.     

Change and Stability in Religiousness and Spirituality in Emerging Adulthood

The author investigated the change and stability of different aspects of religiousness and spirituality, as well as whether personality traits may help explain why individuals increase or decrease in religiousness and spirituality during emerging adulthood. Self-report measures of childhood and current religiousness were completed by 224 college-aged participants. A subset of participants also completed a measure of personality and measures of religious and spiritual belief trajectories by rating the importance of each belief at successive age brackets across their lifespan. Analyses of mean-level, rank-order, and individual-level stability and change in religiousness indicated that while average religiousness scores decreased, there was still moderate to high rank-order stability in scores. Additionally, service attendance was less stable and decreased more than importance of religion in daily life. Examination of the trajectories of religiousness and spirituality over time showed similar differences: religiousness decreased, on average, whereas spirituality increased slightly, but significantly, across successive age brackets. Personality traits did not significantly predict change in religiousness over time, although openness predicted change in spirituality. Conclusions include the idea that religiousness in emerging adulthood is comprised on different components that change at different rates.     

Examining Spirituality Over Time: Latent Growth Curve and Individual Growth Curve Analyses

SUMMARY

Research on spirituality and religiousness has gained growing attention in recent years; however, most studies have used cross-sectional designs. As research on this topic evolves, there has been increasing recognition of the need to examine these constructs and their effects through the use of longitudinal designs. Beyond repeated-measures ANOVA and OLS regression models, what tools are available to examine these constructs over time? The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of two cutting-edge statistical techniques that will facilitate longitudinal investigations of spirituality and religiousness: latent growth curve analysis using structural equation modeling (SEM) and individual growth curve models. The SEM growth curve approach examines change at the group level, with change over time expressed as a single latent growth factor. In contrast, individual growth curve models consider longitudinal change at the level of the person. While similar results may be obtained using either method, researchers may opt for one over the other due to the strengths and weaknesses associated with these methods. Examples of applications of both approaches to longitudinal studies of spirituality and religiousness are presented and discussed, along with design and data considerations when employing these modeling techniques.