Conviction,character and coping: religiosity and personality are both uniquely associated with optimism and positive reappraising |
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Authors: | James B Schuurmans-Stekhoven |
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Institution: | 1. School of Psychology, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australiajschuurmans-stekhoven@csu.edu.au |
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Abstract: | ABSTRACTOptimism and positive reappraising seemingly mediate religiosity’s association with well-being. Yet past studies linking religiosity and cognitive coping typically use a bivariate design; thereby ignoring rival explanations. Given previous evidence that agreeableness and conscientiousness (personality traits that co-vary with optimism, positive reappraisal usage and religiosity) largely nullify the association between religiosity and social support, hierarchical regression modelling of cross-sectional survey data – Australia (N?=?195), Japan (N?=?931) and the USA (N?=?5999) – is employed to incrementally validate religiosity’s association with optimism and also positive reappraisals. Although religiosity remains a statistically significant predictor of these coping styles, including agreeableness and conscientiousness typically reduces the strength of association. These cross-cultural results lend weight to the hypothesis that religiosity is a potential, albeit small, influence on cognitive coping styles. Prospective research is now needed to establish whether changes in religiosity precede changes in coping as theorised. |
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Keywords: | Religiosity optimism positive reappraisals personality agreeableness conscientiousness incremental validity |
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