The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice

Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism

Previous research has established how childhood attachment extends into adult romantic attachment and attachment to God. Other research has shown that individuals' styles of attachment to God are differentially associated with three types of spiritual coping methods, self-directing, deferring, and collaborative. Hernandez, Salerno, & Bottoms (2010) sought to extend this body of research by investigating the relationship between God attachment, spiritual coping, and alcohol use. A "novel link" was established between God attachment and alcohol use (p. 106). Research on spiritual coping methods has identified three spiritual coping styles associated with people's relational state with God: self-directing, a self-reliant coping and problem-solving style that works independently of God; deferring, where the responsibility of problem-solving rests on God alone; and collaborative, a problem-solving style that views God and person as cooperative partners in coping and problem-solving. Moreover, a person's God attachment has been differentially associated with these coping methods. Hernandez, Salerno, & Bottoms (2010) sought to extend research on attachment and coping by being the first to study "the effects of God attachment and spiritual coping on alcohol use" (p. 99). They hypothesized that spiritual coping styles would mediate the effect of God attachment on alcohol use. Specifically, they predicted that insecure God attachment style, compared to secure God attachment style, would use "collaborative and deferring style coping styles less and self-directing coping style more," which would then result in increased alcohol use (p. 100). For the study, 429 undergraduate Introductory Psychology students from the University of Illinois at Chicago participated for course credit. The sample's (60% female) religious orientation was 46% Catholic, 43% Christian, 6% Hindu, 3% Muslim, 2% Jewish, 0.4% Greek Orthodox, and 0.4% Sikh. Five measures were utilized to test their hypotheses. The Attachment to God Scale was used to measure participants' "perceived emotional attachment to God" (p. 101). The Religious Problem-Solving Scale was used to measure participants' "religious problem solving tendencies," broken down into three spiritual coping styles: self-directing, deferring, and collaborative (p. 101). The Alcohol-Related Coping Scale was used to measure participants' "social, coping, and enhancement motives for drinking alcohol" (p. 101). The Alcohol Frequency Scale was used to measure participants' general alcohol use. Finally, participants' religious characteristics, such as religious orientation and level of religious involvement, were measured. To test the data, the researchers first implemented a series of one-way between-subjects ANOVA with God attachment style as the independent variable and spiritual coping styles, alcohol-related coping, and general alcohol use as dependent variables. This was followed by mediation analyses to test if the "effect of God attachment on alcohol use and alcohol coping was mediated by spiritual coping styles" (p. 102). Related to spiritual coping, there was a significant main effect of God attachment on spiritual coping, F(2,226) = 26.88, p

International Journal for the Psychology of Religion

The self-conscious emotions (SCE) of guilt, shame, pride, and embarrassment are moral emotions, which motivate adherence to social norms and personal standards and emerge in early childhood following the development of self-awareness. Gender stereotypes of emotion maintain that women experience more guilt, shame, and embarrassment but that men experience more pride. To estimate the magnitude of gender differences in SCE experience and to determine the circumstances under which these gender differences vary, we meta-analyzed 697 effect sizes representing 236,304 individual ratings of SCE states and traits from 382 journal articles, dissertations, and unpublished data sets. Guilt (d = -0.27) and shame (d = -0.29) displayed small gender differences, whereas embarrassment (d = -0.08), authentic pride (d = -0.01), and hubristic pride (d = 0.09) showed gender similarities. Similar to previous findings of ethnic variations in gender differences in other psychological variables, gender differences in shame and guilt were significant only for White samples or samples with unspecified ethnicity. We found larger gender gaps in shame with trait (vs. state) scales, and in guilt and shame with situation- and scenario-based (vs. adjective- and statement-based) items, consistent with predictions that such scales and items tend to tap into global, nonspecific assessments of the self and thus reflect self-stereotyping and gender role assimilative effects. Gender differences in SCE about domains such as the body, sex, and food or eating tended to be larger than gender differences in SCE about other domains. These findings contribute to the literature demonstrating that blanket stereotypes about women's greater emotionality are inaccurate.

Gender Differences in Self-Conscious Emotional Experience: A Meta-Analysis

Handbook of Mentalizing in Mental Health Practice

Religious involvement is frequently found to be associated with less depression in later life. The emotional aspects of religiousness, such as pertaining to the God–object relationship, have not received substantial attention in empirical research among older adults, and especially not in European samples. As part of a pilot study of the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam, a small sample of older church-members (n = 60), aged 68–93, filled out a questionnaire, including the Questionnaire God Image on feelings to God and perceptions of God, two of the God Image Scales designed by Lawrence on perceptions of God, the brief positive and negative religious coping scale designed by Pargament, and items on hopelessness, depressive symptoms, and feelings of guilt. Feelings of discontent towards God correlated positively with hopelessness, depressive symptoms, feelings of guilt, and also with depressive symptoms assessed 13 years earlier; these findings pertained to Protestant participants in particular. Most face...

God image and mood in old age: Results from a community-based pilot study in the Netherlands

This article presents the Dutch Questionnaire God Image (QGI), which has two theory-based dimensions: feelings towards God and perceptions of God's actions. This instrument was validated among a sample of 804 respondents, of which 244 persons received psychotherapy. Results showed relationships between the affective and cognitive aspect of the God image. The God image of psychiatric patients had a more negative and threatening nature than the God image of the non-psychiatric respondents. Also, religious culture appeared to affect the God image.

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Development and validation of the Dutch Questionnaire God Image: Effects of mental health and religious culture

As God representations are multi-facetted psychological processes regarding the personal meaning of God/the divine to the individual, this study examines how multiple aspects of God representations are configured within individuals belonging to a sample of psychiatric patients or a non-patient sample, and how these configurations are associated with mental health. By means of cluster analyses, three types of God representations were found: a Positive-Authoritative one, a Passive-Unemotional one, and, only among psychiatric patients, a Negative-Authoritarian one. Types of God representations were significantly related to affective state, as well as religious saliency and religious background. Patients with the negative type of God representation were more distressed and depressed, and Orthodox-Reformed patients reported significantly more negative types of God representations. This study demonstrates the value of a person-oriented approach, by showing that scale scores became especially meaningful in the context of the types, which enables more nuanced distinctions regarding subgroups.

/pdf/types-of-god-representations-and-mental-health-a-person-4fy762kb6a.pdf

Types of God Representations and Mental Health: A Person-Oriented Approach

Objectives Growing evidence shows several possible relations between religiousness and late-life depression. Emotional aspects of religiousness such as facets of the perceived relationship with God can be crucial in this connection. The aim of the current study was to examine the association between the course of late-life depression and feelings about God and religious coping. Design Longitudinal survey study; naturalistic; 12-year follow-up. Setting Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam; population-based, in three regions in The Netherlands. Participants A subsample of 343 respondents (mean age: 77.2 years), including all respondents with high levels of depressive symptoms at any measurement cycle between 1992 and 2003 (assessed by using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale and the Diagnostic Interview Schedule) and a random sample of nondepressed respondents who completed a postal questionnaire in 2005. Measurements Scales on God Image and Religious Coping. Twelve-year depression course trajectories serve as predicting variables and are specified according to recency and seriousness. Results Persistent and emergent depression are significantly associated with fear of God, feeling wronged by God, and negative religious coping. In terms of negative religious coping, significant associations were observed after adjustment for concurrent depression with a history of repeated minor depression and previous major depression. Conclusions Late-life depression seems to maintain a pervasive relationship over time with affective aspects of religiousness. Religious feelings may parallel the symptoms of anhedonia or a dysphoric mood and could represent the experience of an existential void.

Twelve-year history of late-life depression and subsequent feelings to God.

In Western countries, professionals in mental health care (“professionals”) tend to be less religious than “consumers”. This qualitative study explores the meaning of this “religiosity gap” for pro...

Hanneke Schaap-Jonker

Papers

God image and mood in old age: Results from a community-based pilot study in the Netherlands

Development and validation of the Dutch Questionnaire God Image: Effects of mental health and religious culture

Types of God Representations and Mental Health: A Person-Oriented Approach

Twelve-year history of late-life depression and subsequent feelings to God.

The ‘religiosity gap’ in a clinical setting: experiences of mental health care consumers and professionals