religious and spiritual struggles in relation to stress and religiousness

Introduction

Religious and spiritual aspects of life present a variety of challenges.The Religious and Spiritual Struggles scale (RSS; Exline, Pargament, Grubbs,

& Yali, 2014) proposes a 6-factor structure of these problems’ themes:

Divine: conflict or insecurity in relationship with GodDemonic: perceived persecution by the devil or evil spiritsInterpersonal: conflicts with people related to religion/spiritualityMoral: concerns with morality of one’s actions and desiresMeaning: doubting the importance, purpose, or meaning of

one’s lifeDoubt: discomfort with religious/spiritual doubts and

questions

Greater lifetime trauma should provide more opportunities/triggers for various types of R/S struggle, as struggles often arise when people try to cope with negative events.All RSS factors relate positively to anxiety, depression, anger, and loneliness.Spiritual struggles relate to many other forms of distress (Ano & Pargament, 2012).

RSS correlations with religiousness vary across the six factors.A strong religious orienting system may buffer any effects of trauma on struggles.This would imply weaker correlations for trauma & RSS, given high religiousness.

Hypothesis 1: Lifetime trauma predicts greater religious & spiritual struggles.

Hypothesis 2: Religiousness and trauma interact, predicting less RSS.

MethodParticipantsN = 3,106 USA undergraduates Mean age = 19.1 63% female72% White / Caucasian / European American 73% Christian

MeasuresReligious and Spiritual Struggles (Exline et al., 2014)

Six subscales rated on a 5-point Likert scale for applicability over past few months

Religious belief salience and religious participation (Blaine & Crocker, 1995)Belief salience: 4 items rated for agreement on an 11-point Likert scale

E.g., “My religious/spiritual beliefs lie behind my whole approach to life.”Excluded 355 people who chose, “Does not apply; I have no religious/spiritual beliefs”Participation: 8 items rated for frequency in past week on a 6-point scale

E.g., “prayed or meditated”, “thought about religious/spiritual issues”Lifetime trauma (Turner & Lloyd, 1995)

List of 19 traumatic life events: rated “No”, “Yes, once”, or “Yes, more than once”E.g., “Did your parents get a divorce?” “Has a spouse, child, or other loved one died?”

Religious and Spiritual Struggles in Relation to Stress and Religiousness

Nick Stauner, Joshua A. Wilt, & Julie J. Exline Kenneth I. PargamentCase Western Reserve University Bowling Green State University

References

Ano, G. G., & Pargament, K. I. (2012). Predictors of spiritual struggles: An exploratory study. Mental Health, Religion, & Culture, 16(4), 1–16.

Blaine, B., & Crocker, J. (1995). Religiousness, race, and psychological well-being: Exploring social psychological moderators. PSPB, 21(10), 1031–1041.

Exline, J. J., Pargament, K. I., Grubbs, J. B., & Yali, A. M. (2014). The Religious and Spiritual Struggles scale: Development and initial validation. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 6(3), 208–222.

Turner, R. J., & Lloyd, D. A. (1995). Lifetime traumas and mental health: The significance of cumulative adversity. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 36(4), 360–376.

Acknowledgement

We wish to express our gratitude for funding from the John Templeton Foundation (Grant #36094).

ResultsSEM and factor scores estimated using robust DWLS fit to 2-step polychoric correlations

Religiousness was estimated as a second-order factor from belief salience & participation.

Religious belief salience & participation are strongly collinear (r = .86, VIFs = 4).

No interactions in multiple regressions predicting RSS from trauma and religiousness.Main effects were estimated as a structural equation model (see Figure).Second-order RSS factor scores estimated from 6 1st-order factor scores.

Predicting 2nd-order RSS factor: lifetime trauma β = .31; religiousness β = .14

When calculating religiousness as the mean of religious belief salience and participation, weak interactions emerged:

Divine Demonic Interpersonal Moral Meaning Doubt TotalReligiousness × Trauma β: -.06 -.04 -.05 -.06 -.03 ns -.06 -.06

All ps < .02, except when predicting Meaning struggle. Informal replication attempts failed.

Contact: NickStauner@gmail.comFigure. Structural equation model predicting struggles from trauma and

religiousnessModel

fitScaled

Χ²Χ² df

TLIRMSEAWRMR

statistics

60251454.973.035

2.135

Discussion

Hypothesis 1: supported. Lifetime trauma predicts moderately greater R/S struggles independently of religiousness.

Trauma explains the most variance in struggles overall. Religiousness only explains more in demonic and moral struggles.Religious and spiritual struggles may arise from traumatic experiences generally.Religiousness may also increase some struggles and decrease others.Predictive relationships are independent.

Hypothesis 2: inconclusive. Interactions were very weak. Significance depended on the method of estimating religiousness.Religiousness does not substantially reduce any effects of lifetime trauma on R/S struggles.People with low religiousness may struggle more with traumatic experiences, but only to a very small degree if so.

Religiousness provides at most a negligible buffer against effects of trauma on R/S struggles.

Divine Demonic Interpersonal MoralUltimate Meaning Doubt

R. Belief Salience

Religious Participation

Lifetime Trauma

Religiousness

.87 .95

.55

.28 .23 .30

.17 .34

.15

-.18

-.06

.27 .21

Religious and Spiritual Struggles Scale(RSS)

Note. All paths p < .02. RSS factor correlations and insignificant paths omitted. The strongest predictor of each struggle factor is bolded.