Cope, Michael Currently in the United States there are 22 bills in 11 states making it easier for people to demand exemptions to generally applicable laws by allowing lawsuits challenging laws or policy that someone says substantially burdens their religious belief. Inherent in these laws is the proposition that people who hold religious views are entitled to make others conform to those views and that those who do not confirm are not entitled to equal treatment with others.

While the concept of sin plays a pivotal role in the ethico-religious philosophies of Kierkegaard and Kant, both struggle to provide an adequate account of the nature of sin. Kant’s ethical interpretation improves signifi cantly on the traditional theological account by introducing the notion of individual responsibility, but it ultimately fails to provide an explanation of the psychological mechanisms of the fall. Kierkegaard tries to unite the Kantian conception of responsibility with an essentially Hegelian interpretation of the fall, using (...) the concept of anxiety as the glue. Contrary to usual opinion, it is argued here that far from resolving the difficulties of the Kantian account, Kierkegaard’s interpretation only serves to multiply them. But it is also shown that Kierkegaard’s analysis of the phenomenon that he calls “anxiety about sin” does provide the materials for an alternative interpretation of the origin of moral evil in man. (shrink)

The literature describes religious coping as an important predictor of mental well-being. Present study is aimed at extending this knowledge by assessing whether specific religious coping regulates specific cognitive emotional responses to improve well-being during Covid pandemic, an extreme international event with significant impacts on individuals and communities. A sample of young adults responded to self-report measures of negative and positive religious coping, positive reappraisal, self-blaming, and mental well-being. Results revealed that positive religious (...) coping was a positive predictor of mental well-being and positive reappraisal mediated this positive link. Also, gender and physical health status significantly interacted with positive reappraisal to predict mental well-being in these mediational associations. More specifically, indirect effects of positive reappraisal were positive and significant for men and for participants with better physical health compared with women and those with poor physical health. However, negative religious coping was not a significant correlate of mental well-being but a positive correlate of self-blame. Results suggest that positive religious coping facilitates positive regulation of emotions for improved mental well-being in young adults and particularly young men. (shrink)

Spiritual/religious coping has proven to be a fertile ground for investigating health-related spirituality in action. Ken Pargament and his colleagues have successfully demonstrated that spiritual/religious coping differs significantly from previously identified coping strategies. While much has been accomplished to date, there are undeveloped theoretical and methodological avenues that appear to provide important promise for understanding the complexities of this critical domain of coping. Some scholars have failed to conceptualize and research spiritual/religious coping (...) as a contextual, temporally bounded process. This paper explores the theoretical and methodological advantages of adopting a contextually embedded, process-oriented epistemology—contextual action theory. We propose that doing so will not only address some of the inadequacies of the extant literature but also aid researchers in exploring novel dimensions of spiritual/religious coping. From a contextual action-theory perspective, spiritual/religious coping is viewed as intentional, goal-directed behaviour that is embedded in a social and relational context. This teleonomic reconceptualization enables researchers to understand the constitution and development of intentions involved in the process of spiritual/religious coping over time. Further, a contextual action theory perspective transcends the narrow, individualistic lens of coping and explores joint and collective coping processes that emerge as people draw upon spiritual/religious practices to cope with distress. Thus, spiritual/religious coping is embedded in social and relational context and as part of personal, intentional goal-directed processes over time. The novel contributions of a contextual theoretical perspective to spiritual/religious coping research and theory are illustrated through a case example. (shrink)

Research suggests that religious beliefs may both help and hinder how Muslims cope. In a Pakistani sample, the Positive Islamic Coping, Islamic Identity, and Extra-Prayer Commitment factors from the Psychological Measure of Islamic Religiousness correlated negatively with Perceived Stress and positively with Mental Well-Being, Intrinsic Religious Orientation, and Extrinsic Personal Religious Orientation. Islamic Identity also partially mediated the negative relationship of Perceived Stress with Mental Well-Being. A Punishing Allah Reappraisal factor failed to display any evidence that (...) it operationalized a maladaptive form of Muslim coping. These data most importantly confirmed the positive coping potentials of Muslim commitments, with Islamic Identity being especially noteworthy. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine relationships among religious coping styles, the experience of daily hassles, and resiliency. Through the use of a set of questionnaires, positive and negative religious coping styles are identified and analyzed in relation to a direct measure of resiliency, level of psychological distress, and level of daily hassles. Negative religious coping is positively related to psychological distress, while individuals who experience more daily hassles but use higher levels (...) of positive religious coping have greater resiliency than individuals who use higher levels of negative religious coping. Additionally, the combination of daily hassles, major life stressors, level of positive religious coping, and resiliency accounted for a significant proportion of the variability in psychological distress. Post hoc analyses removed questions of spirituality from the resiliency scale that could possibly overlap with the measure of religious coping. These exploratory analyses indicate that negative religious coping is negatively correlated with non-spiritual resiliency. Exploratory analyses also indicate that individuals who experience more daily hassles but use higher levels of positive religious coping do not have greater levels of non-spiritual resiliency than individuals who use negative religious coping. (shrink)

In this paper, we will present some results of a study among patients in a forensic psychiatric hospital in The Netherlands. We will focus on the following issues: the patients' general religious beliefs and activities; the patients' religious coping activities; the patients' well-being; the relationship between general religious beliefs and activities, religious coping activities and well-being. We will compare the results among this population with the results of our earlier research in various other psychiatric (...) settings. (shrink)

The notion of evil spirits influencing human behavior or mental processes is used in many cultures to justify various symptoms or experiences. It is also expressed in psychotic delusions of possession, but there is limited research in this area. This study explores how patients with schizophrenia came to the conclusion that they were possessed, and how this affected help-seeking. Interviews with two men and two women about their experiences and meaning-making were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three main themes were (...) identified: Links between traumatic experiences and psychotic symptoms, The emergence of religious themes in delusional contents, and Reluctance to use medical treatment and instead to seek exorcism. In each case, attributing problems to possession was supported by the local environment and media, led to seeking spiritual help, and delayed diagnostic assessment and treatment. However, using religious coping contributed to the sense of predictability and social support. Clinicians are encouraged to explore the experiences and conflicts expressed by the symptoms which people ascribe to possession and to negotiate alternative explanatory models with their patients. (shrink)

This study examined cross-sectional links of the theistic and non-theistic sanctification of marriage and positive and negative religious coping with marital adjustment for 316 married Muslims from Iran. Perceiving marriage to be a manifestation of God and reflective of sacred qualities as well as engaging in positive and negative religious/spiritual coping strategies each uniquely contributed variance to marital adjustment, after controlling for each other and global indicators of devotion to Islam, and demographic variables. Specifically, theistic sanctification, (...) non-theistic sanctification, and positive r/s coping were uniquely tied to higher marital adjustment whereas negative r/s coping was uniquely tied to lower marital adjustment theistic in a hierarchical regression model with all primary variables and controls entered. These findings replicate and extend prior findings on the perceived sanctity of marriage with US samples of predominantly Christians to Muslims living in the Middle East, and offer novel cross-cultural insights into the possible roles that sanctification of marriage and r/s coping may play for marital well-being for non-distressed married Muslims. (shrink)

As research focusing on stress-related growth proliferates, links between religion and growth are increasingly reported. However, little research has focused on the role that religious coping plays in subsequent growth from major stressful life events. Findings from three longitudinal studies that examined aspects of religiousness as determinants of stress-related growth, as well as the potential mediation by religious coping, are presented. Results suggest that the influences of religiousness on growth vary by sample and by type of (...) stressor. Further, religious coping was found to mediate influences of religious orientations on growth for students and for older adults dealing with a variety of problems, but was unrelated to growth following bereavement in a second sample of students. Together, these studies provide support for the notion that religiousness influences growth in complex ways, only some of which are mediated through religious coping. Future research considerations are discussed. (shrink)

The study was carried out in order to reveal the problems of hearing-impaired students, who have an important place in our society and the reli-gious coping methods they use to cope with their problems. In the first part of the study, the problems of the hearing impaired students and their religious coping methods were examined. In the second part, the findings obtained as a result of the interviews were interpreted under two headings as the participants' problems and (...) religious coping methods. In accordance with the purpose of the study, semi-structured interview technique, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used. The study group of the research, which was designed according to the phenomenology method, one of the qualitative research methods, consisted of 11 students, 9 boys and 2 girls, studying at the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades of Çorum Special Education Vocational High School. The data obtained in the study were analyzed by content analysis method. As a result of the study, it was seen that hearing-impaired students frequently resort to positive religious coping methods to overcome their problems. It is also concluded that the students are willing to share their problems; religious thoughts, feelings and behaviors have an important effect on coping with their problems; they use religious coping methods such as trust in Allah, prayer and worship while coping with their problems but they are open to support from the environment; they try to overcome the problems not with complaints but with patience. It has been observed that hearing-impaired students sometimes question why they are disabled rather than others, and they feel uneasy in this situation. For hearing-impaired individuals to protect their mental health, necessary training should be provided without neglecting the religious aspect of their problems. (shrink)

Building on the theoretical research of community psychology and cultural psychology, I focus in this paper on these two questions: What kind of religious coping is practiced by some members of the Lutheran tradition? What does an understanding of the relationship between the tradition and religious coping of these members indicate that may be distinctive or unexpected about their religious coping? I do this by: reviewing the background of my research in community psychology, cultural (...) psychology, and tradition-specific research on religious coping - particularly in the United States; outlining a method for a qualitative study of nine Lutheran co-researchers in the United States who had experienced a significant negative event; reporting some of the results of that study; using the results of the study to discuss the two questions above; concluding with some suggestions for future research of the specific religious traditions in which religious coping phenomena may occur, and of the phenomena of religious coping in specific religious traditions. (shrink)

This article addresses the research question: “How do Dutch highly educated Muslim women of Moroccan descent use prayer in dealing with problems?” The theoretical framework was mainly based on the work of Pargament et al. regarding religious coping. The empirical part of the study consisted of a quantitative and a qualitative part. This article presents results of the quantitative part. For the quantitative part of our research, 177 questionnaires were collected using snowball sampling. We asked respondents about their (...) praying practices and their ways of religious coping, using the Brief RCOPE. The connection and communication in their prayer with a loving, caring, benevolent God is the main religious way in which these Muslim women of Moroccan descent cope with all kinds of problems. This use of prayer as a way of coping can be clarified through the psychological functions of religiosity and prayer that are suggested by Pargament, Koenig, and Perez. Prayer could help them in: finding meaning, being master over their circumstances and controlling their emotions, finding comfort and closeness to God, experiencing intimacy with others and closeness to God, and transforming their way of life. We did find few negative religious coping strategies, such as negative feelings towards God or alienation. This is in line with research results of Abu Raiya and Pargament. As Islam implies surrender to God, it may be difficult for Muslims to admit their religious distress, doubts, and struggles. (shrink)

In this study we relate four different measures: the theodicy models proposed by van der Ven, the coping strategies proposed by Pargament, a measure of positive or negative self-image and the post critical belief scales we ourselves have developed. We analysed the data of 251 Dutch-speaking Belgians. In the analysis we focus on the relation of the different measures with the post critical belief scales. Different types of believers are using different theodicy models, somewhat different coping strategies and (...) we observe some differences in self-image, where believers have a more positive self-image than non-believers. We could suggest that there is a specific theodicy model used by symbolic believers and another theodicy model used by more literal believers. The former could be interpreted as more developed and perhaps more religiously mature. (shrink)

In this study we relate four different measures: the theodicy models proposed by van der Ven, the coping strategies proposed by Pargament, a measure of positive or negative self-image and the post critical belief scales we ourselves have developed. We analysed the data of 251 Dutch-speaking Belgians. In the analysis we focus on the relation of the different measures with the post critical belief scales. Different types of believers are using different theodicy models, somewhat different coping strategies and (...) we observe some differences in self-image, where believers have a more positive self-image than non-believers. We could suggest that there is a specific theodicy model used by symbolic believers and another theodicy model used by more literal believers. The former could be interpreted as more developed and perhaps more religiously mature. (shrink)

Even though there are several studies showing a clear connection between religious coping and distress, only few of them illustrate models of mediation between religious coping and its psychological effects. In this paper we investigate the mediation effect that response expectancies have in the relation between religious coping and non-volitional responses . The study was made on 38 females diagnosed with breast cancer and which were following a treatment with radiotherapy sessions. The results confirmed (...) the presence of a mediation effect in the case of negative religious coping. When the mediator was present we registered significant indirect effects ranging from 37% to 47% of the Total effect that negative religious coping had on its outcomes. Our results suggested that religious coping could act like a placebo, the appearance of its effects being mediated by response expectancies. Due to its significant prediction effect upon non-volitional responses, we propose the introduction of the concept of religious response expectancies. (shrink)

Religious coping and spiritual struggles were qualitatively analyzed in 15 semi-structured interviews with Norwegian Hodgkin’s disease survivors. We asked, How is religious coping expressed in 15 Norwegian Hodgkin’s disease survivors? The analyses were theory-driven, using religious coping and spiritual struggles theories as explorative tools. Especially we focused on coping processes, coping dynamics, coping styles, and coping activities. The analyses show that religiousness functioned as a positive factor in coping with (...) cancer in 14 of the 15 participants, equally distributed as conservational and transformational coping. The combination of the belief in a good, present God, eventually positive divine power, accessible through prayer, and religious support from people around the participants, were the most prominent activities in the religious coping processes. The religious coping had a character of being collaborative for almost all of the participants. Many participants had severe spiritual struggles. For many of the participants, it was difficult not only to be sick, but also to be a survivor. Theories on religious coping and spiritual struggles were useful and adaptable to a Norwegian sample regarding the main dynamics in the religious coping and spiritual struggles processes. The analyses detected a few different religious coping activities in this Norwegian sample compared to those identified in American samples, with the importance of meeting God in nature as the most significant difference. (shrink)

This article reports on a study of the relationship between narcissism, as an important personality trait in individualistic societies, and religious styles of coping. We distinguish between two dimensions of narcissism: overt and covert narcissism, and four different styles of religious coping: self-directing, collaborative, deferring and receptive. The study was carried out by inviting 116 students to complete questionnaires about narcissism and religious coping. It revealed a positive correlation between covert narcissism and the collaborative, (...) deferring and receptive styles of religious coping, and a negative correlation between covert narcissism and the self-directing style. Overt narcissism only had a positive correlation with the receptive style. The article discusses in detail the significance of the relationships between narcissism and styles of religious coping. (shrink)

A patient suffering from a severe illness that is entering its terminal stage is forced to develop a coping process. Of all the coping patterns, the religious one stands out as being a psychological resource available to all patients regardless of culture, learning, and any age. Religious coping interacts with other values or practices of society, for example the model of a society that takes care of it's elder members among family or in an institutionalized (...) environment or the way the health system offers or not psychological support for a terminally ill patient. Health care providers should have at least some psychological coping patterns training because not all patterns of religious coping are equally effective, and some have been described as increasing the level of stress or producing other negative psychological effects on the patient. This article aims to review the complex models of religious coping that are unanimously accepted in psychooncology, arguments in favor of religious coping, the types of patients that use this model, ethical dilemmas that could be reinterpreted using religious arguments. Finally, we will also discuss the need of Romanian patients to embrace a religious coping in case of an incurable illness, and also the support that they can receive from both curative and palliative health care providers.  . (shrink)

From the past to the present, it is an undeniable fact that there are many psychological problems in human life because of variety of stressors. There are many methods and ways of coping to face this reality and overcome the obstacles. Recently, pandemic is a huge topic which people have to be struggled. It is possible to say that preventing individuals from leaving the house by social isolation during the pandemic period causes depressive states by triggering feelings of loneliness, (...) and it is possible to say that the feelings of being blocked by deprivation of freedom brings along many psychological problems. In this period, anxiety and uncertainty of pandemic that eliminate the functionality of the person have great psychological effects. Because of the reasons which were aligned above, coping mechanisms are most needed to get over stressful effects of pandemic. The pandemic period is a difficult period in which many individual experience social, economic and especially psychological problems. During this period, people use various coping methods to eliminate their psychological problems. Especially, studies show that religious coping has an important role in coping with psychological problems. To start with explaining the variables in the present study, in its most basic sense, religious coping is explained with the tendency to cope with the difficulties that we encounter in life through religious values. Similarly, religious coping is a form of thought or behavior that helps individuals avoid stress and the negative emotions that it causes. Religious coping is defined as constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to combat certain external and/or internal urges that exceed or strain one's resources. To continue with psychological disorders, in order to understand psychological disorders, first of all, we need to understand psychological health. Psychological health can be defined as emotional and psychological well-being of people. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the well-being and mental health of populations worldwide. This study sought to examine whether religious coping mediated the relationship between COVID-19-related fear and death distress. We administered an online survey to 390 adult participants (66.15% females; Mage = 30.85 ± 10.19 years) across Turkey. Participants completed a series of questionnaires measuring the fear they had experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, their levels of religious coping and their levels of death anxiety and (...) depression. Our findings revealed that (a) fear of COVID-19 was associated with positive religious coping, negative religious coping, death anxiety and death distress; (b) negative religious coping was associated with death anxiety and depression and (c) negative religious coping mediated the relationship between fear of COVID-19 and death anxiety and depression. These results highlight the detrimental effect of negative religious coping in increasing the adverse effect of the COVID-19 fear on death depression. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to determine what kind of religious coping activities the refugee students forced to emigrate to Turkey due to the devastating reasons such as war and violation of rights apply in order to overcome their traumatic lives and the relationship between the use of these religious coping activities and their adaptation to the culture they live in. The fact that religion has important functions in dealing with all difficulties, especially forced migration, (...) makes it a matter of interest about what kind of religious coping process refugees have experienced for making their lives bearable. Therefore, this research is based on the assumption that the refugees mostly struggle with difficulties by using positive religious coping methods and try to achieve cultural adaptation through this struggle. The sample was selected from the refugee students from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan continuing their education in different departments of Karabük University and in different high schools of Karabük National Education Directorate in 2017-2018 academic year. “Cultural Adaptation” and “Religious Coping Styles” scales were applied to the sample with an average age of 18. According to the research findings, cultural adaptation and positive religious coping levels of the sample group are above the average, and negative religious coping levels are below the average. There was found a positive meaningful correlation between cultural adaptation and positive religious coping of which relation was determined through some independent and demographic variables (r =.269). Therefore, it is thought that providing spiritual care for refugee students might increase the level of cultural adaptation.Summary: The aim of this study is to determine what kind of religious coping activities the refugee students forced to emigrate to Turkey due to the devastating reasons such as war and violation of rights apply in order to overcome their traumatic lives and the relationship between the use of these religious coping activities and their adaptation to the culture they live in. The fact that religion has important functions in dealing with all difficulties, especially forced migration, makes it a matter of interest about what kind of religious coping process refugees have experienced for making their lives bearable. Therefore, this research is based on the assumption that the refugees mostly struggle with difficulties by using positive religious coping methods and try to achieve cultural adaptation through this struggle. The study that was conducted according to correlational survey model, used the questionnaire technique by implementing the “Cultural Adaptation” and “Religious Coping Styles” scales together with a personal information form. The sample of the study was chosen by random sampling, and consisted of 112 volunteer refugee students from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, studying at different departments of Karabük University and different public high schools in Karabük. While analyzing the data, firstly, averages were calculated by obtaining total scores of the scales. In order to reveal whether students’ cultural adaptation levels differ by various variables or not, t-test (Independent Samples t-test), one-way analysis of variance (Oneway ANOVA) and Scheffe Test were applied. While analyzing relations related to religious coping, non-parametric ‘Man Whitney U’ and ‘Kruskall Wallis H’ tests were applied in accordance with the result of the normality test. In the study in which correlation test was applied to determine the relationship between cultural adaptation and religious coping, the lowest p-value was predicated as.05 to determine the level of statistical significance. According to the findings, sample group’s levels of cultural adaptation (=3,27) and positive religious coping (=3,42) were above the average, and the level of negative religious coping (=1,77) was below the average. Cultural adaptation levels of the sample group has shown significant statistical differences in terms of the nationality variable. Accordingly, Syrian students had higher cultural adaptation scores (=3,48) than Iraqi (=3,19) and Afghani students (=3,06), and the difference among them was statistically meaningful (p<.01). There wasn’t detected any significant relationship between ‘negative religious coping’ levels of the sample and demographic and other independent variables; however, there were seen statistically significant differences just in terms of nationality, gender and age range among other demographic variables. Accordingly, female students scored higher (= 64,46) in positive coping than male students (= 47,32). The difference between them is statistically meaningful (p<.01). Students at the ages of 21-24 scored higher in positive religious coping (= 70,54) and the difference between them and the students at the ages of 14-16 (= 47,47) reached meaningful level, next to this Syrian students had higher levels of positive religious coping (= 62,91) and this reached a meaningful difference (p<.01) when compared with the averages of Afghani students (= 42,63). Moreover, there was a positive significant relationship between cultural adaptation and positive religious coping (r=.269, n=112, p=.004).Forced migration caused by wars is a traumatic experience including material and moral loss. The greatest contribution of spirituality in this kind of negative experiences causing severe stress is through positive religious coping. Hence, religious and spiritual beliefs not only enable cognitive satisfaction by offering the most satisfying answers to traumatic victims’ search for meaning, yet also help them to accept the situation. This is caused due to a sense of devotion, and contribute to both their struggle with the trauma and their post-traumatic development. According to the research findings, there is a significant relationship between students’ cultural adaptation and ‘positive religious coping’ tendency. Therefore, providing these students with spiritual care and counseling might contribute to their integration process. Moreover, it has been seen that it is important to conduct value-centered projects and activities which would prevent both refugee students and locals to marginalize each other, and would improve the culture of living-together. It is also important to provide governmental and non-governmental support for these projects and activities. On the other hand, launching free language courses to resolve communication problems, which are obstacles for integration, and establishing socio-cultural networks in and around the campus for constituting more compatible relationships among the students would improve the students’ integration capability. (shrink)

COVID-19 is a new type of coronavirus that has spread all over the world and has caused a global epidemic that affected all parts of society. Healthcare professionals that are involved in the diagnosis, treatment, and care of patients diagnosed with coronavirus have been under a heavy burden both physically and psychologically during the fight against this disease. Articles published on protecting the mental health of healthcare professionals during the epidemic have stated that healthcare professionals should be supported to prevent (...) the negative effects of the epidemic on them. This new situation requires developing appropriate strategies for coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the given heavy burden by healthcare professionals. Therefore, the determination of effective approaches for the protection of mental health of healthcare professionals and increasing their protective factors, such as psychological resilience, has got great importance. Positive religious coping contents can be seen among the protective factors that affect the psychological resilience of healthcare professionals. Positive religious coping behaviors, such as refuge in Allah, praying, and reading Qur'an, not only provides a spiritual strength against the troubles of life but also provides a sense of control, peace, and security. This research aims to examine the relationship between religious coping and psychological resilience in healthcare professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethical approval for this research was obtained from Atatürk University Social and Human Science Ethics Committee (12.04.2021 dated and 88656144-000.E.2100103436 numbered). Descriptive research and correlational methods were used in the study. The population of the research consists of personnel working in health facilities operating throughout the country. The sample consists of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, midwives, and other health workers working in these health institutions. The Snowball sampling method was used in this study. For this aim, a Google Forms was established and 293 health workers in more than 40 provinces have filled this form. Personal Information Form, Religious Coping Scale, and Brief Psychological Resilience Scale were used as data collection tools. These data collection tools were used to determine whether positive and negative religious coping and psychological resilience differs according to gender and age. In addition to the above-mentioned aim, the relationship between positive and negative religious coping and resilience was examined in this study. T-test and ANOVA were applied in the analysis of demographic variables. Correlation and regression analysis were used to test the relationship between the variables. Findings obtained from this study have revealed that the levels of religious coping and psychological resilience of healthcare professionals differ according to their demographic characteristics. Results have shown that while there is no significant difference between women and men in terms of using positive religious coping methods, men use negative religious coping methods more frequently than women. Results have also revealed that positive coping methods are used more frequently as age increases and psychological resilience increased with age. Correlation analysis has shown that there is a significant relationship between positive religious coping and psychological resilience. Results of regression analysis have shown that positive religious coping is a significant predictor of psychological resilience. This result shows that positive religious coping is an important variable that affects psychological resilience. Results have suggested that there is a need to develop a program with religious/spiritual content that can help healthcare professionals to overcome this difficult process more easily by increasing their psychological resilience. Results obtained from this study may not only contribute to other rehabilitative studies that can be carried out for healthcare professionals during and after the pandemic but also provide scientific data for possible academic studies on this subject. (shrink)

In recent years, the number of foreign students studying at universities in Turkey has been increasing. Recent studies show that foreign students experience problems such as social exclusion and loneliness in city and university life. Loneliness is a concept that has a direct impact on psychosocial well-being. For this reason, it seems important to examine loneliness and religious coping skills in foreign students. The aim of this study is to reveal the loneliness and religious coping levels (...) of foreign university students in terms of socio-demographic variables. Correlational research method, one of the quantitative research designs, was used in the research. The sample of the study consists of 139 students, 121 of whom are Syrian nationals and 18 Africans. On the other hand, this research is important in that it is conducted in Kilis, one of the provinces where the Syrian population is the most dense, and mostly with Syrian university students. As a result of the research, it was determined that the positive religious coping levels of university students under the age of 20 were higher than those of students over the age of 20. It was found out that the prolongation of the residence period in Turkey positively increased the religious coping levels of the students, and the family types of the students (parents together, separate, loss of parents, etc.) did not have an effect on the levels of religious coping and loneliness. On the other hand, it was showed that there was no significant relationship between the number of siblings and religious coping and loneliness in foreign students, and lastly, the religious coping levels of the engineering faculty students were higher than the students studying in other departments. (shrink)

This article presents the results of a study in The Netherlands among two groups of religious people: i.e., 165 Christian outpatients and 171 parishioners. In this study, we focused on the following main questions. To what degree did these two groups of Christians practice positive religious coping, negative religious coping and receptive coping? What are the relationships between these three coping strategies? To what degree were positive religious, negative religious and receptive (...) coping activities related to the well-being of the respondents? What are the best predictors of well-being: positive religious, negative religious or receptive coping? The results showed that positive religious, negative religious and receptive coping were three independent predictors of well-being, with negative religious coping being the best predictor. (shrink)

This study addresses the psychological functions of physical religious objects in religious coping by presenting case studies on the use of prayer cloths. The cases are selected from a qualitative, in-depth interview study among Swedish practising Christians suffering from cancer, on religious experiences and expressions that serve in the process of coping with a life situation changed by the disease. It is argued that current psychological theories on coping and religion lack tools for understanding (...) the role of physical religious objects in the process of religious coping. A theoretical framework that remedies this problem is suggested and applied to the case studies. The key feature of the theoretical framework is that it modifies and extends the coping theory of Kenneth Pargament by drawing on resources from object relations theory, especially the concept of “transitional object”. The results suggests that the creation and/or handling of transitional objects is a reconstructing or preserving coping method, and that prayer cloths function as transitional objects when they facilitate transition/movement between the inner subjective world and the outer objective world by being charged with significance, and function as a coping tool for conserving this significance. (shrink)

This article presents a study of coping behavior regarding Orthodox religious students in Russia. The paper analyzes the investigation results concerning psychological features of modern Orthodox students from two universities in Russia. The data collection methods are: Folkman and Lazarus’s coping-test, Smirnov’s psychometric techniques "Questionnaire of religious activity" and Shcherbatykh’s "Test for revealing of the level of individual religiosity". The study suggests that coping behavior is connected with the level of religiosity.

Recently, we have faced the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 in the world, which has attracted the attention of all people. Stress has become a word familiar to all people. The stressors of life are relatively clear and some of them cannot be eliminated by humans. One of the stressors in the life of humans is the COVID-19 pandemic. Doctors believe that the virus is controllable but its prevalence is quicker and deadlier than other viruses. In addition, the virus (...) puts the elderly and those with underlying diseases at extreme risk. Therefore, more care is seriously required to protect members of society. However, this psychological imbalance caused by the virus is associated with stress and anxiety. Lack of proper management of this stress will be associated with emotional impacts, physiological impacts, cognitive impacts and behavioural impact.Contribution: Given the importance of this topic, this study aimed to evaluate the relationship between religious beliefs and coping with COVID-19-related stress amongst Muslim students in three cities of Russia – Ingushetia, Chechnya and the Republic of Dagestan – in 2020. Data were collected using questionnaires, the validity and reliability of which were previously confirmed. According to the results, religious beliefs had an impact on stress coping by p = 0.657. In other words, students’ ability to cope with stress improved by 0.657 units, with each unit of enhancement in their religious beliefs. (shrink)

In a variety of ways, religiosity can help maintain or restore one's future capacity to act. Broadening the coping perspective for the psychology of religion seems to be an adequate theoretical framework for a differentiated analysis of who uses religiosity at what point, in what manner, and with which kind of outcomes in the process of coping with the future. We will introduce this approach and summarize the empirical results that are available up to now. Subsequently, we will (...) be occupied with religious cognitions about the future in a narrower sense: with the so-called millenarian or chiliastic ideas of some religious communities about the imminent end of this world. First, we will work out the specific criteria of such cognitions. Based on the approach of religious coping we will then examine whether millenarianism can be helpful in coping with the future. Our functional analysis proposes that central elements of chiliastic ideas serve to convince the believer that his life has meaning and purpose despite the obvious suffering and evil in the world. However, specific difficulties and risks are intertwined with chiliastic forms of coping with the future, namely: the derogation of this world, the problems arising from a prediction of explicit dates for the end of the world, and the connection between millenarianism and violence. (shrink)

The problem of evil is not an accidental difficulty for religion; it is the starting-point from which the search that sometimes leads to religion begins.The problem of evil of which Mary Midgley speaks is not just the relatively narrow theoretical one familiar to us in the West of how conceptually to reconcile an alleged absolute goodness and power of God with the rampant evil in the world, but the much broader existential one, applicable everywhere, of how to interpret, respond to, (...) and cope with the presence and power of evil in daily life. It is the problem of how to find courage and strength in the face of the relentless perils, sufferings, and losses experienced on an everyday basis by the world's creatures .. (shrink)

During the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, stress and anxiety were pervasive among the masses due to high morbidity and mortality. Besides the fear of coronavirus was also particularly driven by social media. Many people started to look for faith and spiritual connections to gain comfort. The role of spiritual ties and religious beliefs in relation to coping with pandemic stress gained the attention of researchers in some parts of the world. This cross-sectional survey aimed at assessing (...) the intensity of stress and anxiety symptoms experienced by people and how much they were alleviated by employing spiritual connections. The study sample comprises 795 respondents with 52% males and 48% females living in Saudi Arabia. The brief online study questionnaire collected data about background variables, anxiety and stress scale from DASS-21, and items from the WHOQOL instrument assessed the use of spiritual beliefs to cope. Multiple regression models were tested to determine the role of spiritual connections after adjusting demographic variables. Results illustrated that after adjusting for gender and age, participants' anxiety symptoms decreased by units with each unit increase in the use of spiritual connections, and participants’ stress symptoms reduce by units with each unit increase in coping with spirituality. Additionally, females’ risk to experience anxiety and stress symptoms was more than males and, respectively. An increase in age decreases the likelihood of experiencing anxiety symptoms and stress symptoms by and units respectively. Findings support the protective role of spiritual connections despite small beta coefficients. The social and cultural context in Saudi Arabia favors deep-rooted connections with spirituality and faith. Our findings support that the reliance on spiritual connections helped older people to deal with exaggerated fear during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and reduces the risk of experiencing anxiety and stress symptoms. Females and younger participants were relatively vulnerable to developing these symptoms. We discussed these findings considering some recent studies that reported similar relationships and made recommendations for future research. (shrink)

Coping with a relative with a learning disability could be a stressful experience for family members. The present study is aimed at exploring the coping strategies adopted by families in trying to make meaning of their situation. A qualitative study design using focus group discussions was adopted. Ten FGD sessions were held with family members of persons with a learning disability. Findings revealed patterns of family coping to include problem-focused, emotion-focused, and spiritual/religious-focused. Also, coping responses (...) to a learning disability varied based on the level of information available to families about the condition of their relative. In some cases, interspousal relationship was strained due to stress. It was recommended that families of persons with a learning disability need social support and professional help from social workers to facilitate the adoption of more positive-oriented coping strategies by family members. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 39, Issue 2, pp 139 - 164 The aim of the present study is to explore the significance of religiousness for patients suffering from first-episode psychosis. Our study is a thematic analysis. The study illustrates how the patients understood their hallucinations as mystical experiences. Even so, many of the patients describe their religiousness to be helpful in coping with their disorder, giving meaning to life as well as a relationship to a sacred figure. However, their religiousness (...) often contained religious omnipotent delusions, and built on hallucinations, displayed an unsecure relationship to the sacred figure. From a psychiatric point of view, the misinterpretation of hallucinations as mystical experiences may reinforce their delusional system and cause an obstacle to recovery. This misinterpretation may also cause problems for patients’ religious coping. Our findings underline the importance of taking patients’ religiousness into account in psychotherapy. (shrink)

André Laliberté examines the long tradition of statecraft in China to demonstrate how the intermingling of religions and state remains a key feature of Chinese modernity despite the materialist philosophy of the Communist Party.

Worldview Religious Studies brings the study of religion, spirituality, secularism, and other mixed attitudes of life under the overarching scheme of worldview studies. This book introduces and defines worldviews more generally before establishing a framework specific to religious studies. The drive for meaning-making is explored through ritual-symbolic activities, ideas of 'play', and the power of emotions to transform simple ideas into values and beliefs that frame identity and signpost destiny. Identity and its sacralisation are discussed alongside gift/reciprocity theory (...) in their relation to ideas of merit, karma, and salvation in Eastern and Western traditions. This theoretical background is used to introduce a new classification of worldviews - natural, scientific, ancestral, karmic, prophetic-sectarian, mystical, and ideological. Organised thematically by chapter, this book brings together familiar and unfamiliar authors, theories, and sources to challenge students and teachers of Religious Studies, Theology, and Ethics. It introduces worldview religious studies as a framework through which to re-think human endeavours to identify, cope and even transcend life's flaws and perils. (shrink)

Stories in the Zhuangzi detailing expert artisans and other extraordinary people are often read as celebrations of “skills” or “knacks.” In this paper, I will argue that they would be more accurately understood as “coping” stories. Taken as a celebration of one’s “skill” or “knack” they transform the Zhuangzi into an implicit advocate of conforming to, or even identifying with, one’s social roles. I will argue that the stories of artisans and extraordinarily skilled people are less about cultivating one’s (...) talents so as to “find one’s calling,” better fulfill social expectations, or achieve oneness with Dao, than they are concerned with developing strategies for coping with natural and social contingencies. Read in this way, there is much to learn from the Zhuangzi when reflecting on contemporary social and political issues, especially those related to meritocratic hubris. (shrink)

This study addresses the Bible as a coping tool in a sample of Swedish practising Christians living with cancer, gathered through a qualitative, in-depth interview study, on religious experiences and expressions that serve in the process of coping with a life situation changed by the disease. Through content analyses, and case studies combining tools from Pargament’s coping theory with, above all, role theory, it is shown that the Bible is a part of the coping process (...) for approximately half of the informants. Furthermore, the Bible plays very different roles in the coping process, even for one single person. In the analyzed material, two different ways of using the Bible in the coping process occurs: Biblical passages as bearer of meaning for the informants, and the actual reading as such of the Bible. The former with two different functions in the coping process: in the Biblical passages, see a direct appeal from God to the individual on a personal level and a specific character in a Bible passage serves as an object of identification for the informant. In the coping process, the Bible provides coping tools for the identified coping methods meditative reading, role taking, and interpretation of biblical passages. As such, it mainly serves within the framework of the preserving comprehensive coping method. It is also shown that there are changes in the use of the Bible in connection with the changed life situation, as a result of the disease. (shrink)

In this paper some results of a study among psychiatric patients in a large mental hospital in the Netherlands are presented. We focus on the following issues: - the religious and spiritual beliefs and activities of the inpatients; - both the positive and the negative influence of their religion and their religious coping on their mental problems as well as on their existential well-being. The results are discussed briefly within the theoretical notions of religious coping, (...) adressing the positive influence especially of religious beliefs, relying on God and religious social support in psychological and existential times of crisis. (shrink)

Religion constitutes an important element in every society as regards coping with the demands as well as vicissitudes of life. Mental health issues are becoming a recurrent decimal in societies overwhelmed by stress and other social factors. This paper examines how the presence of religious beliefs affects how some Christians respond to cases that have to do mental health. At the same time, it surveys how a near absence of religious attitude, that is, clinical medicine approach to (...) mental health issues betters the state of those suffering from these psychopathologies. This work sees participatory partnership approach as an effective means of correcting unhealthy biases that prevent a better understanding of mental health care. Sociological theory of structural functionalism will be used in assessing how religion can reinvent itself in areas that are associated with mental health. Ethnographic methodology through quantitative analysis of administered questionnaire is used as a research tool for this research. Three persons were also interviewed. The research findings show that religion is a crucial agent of socialization that can change how religious beliefs impact on mental health and there is need for medical professionals to collaborate with pastoral agents. (shrink)

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age describes and explains the evolution of religion over the past ten millennia. It shows that an overall evolutionary sequence can be observed, running from the spirit and shaman dominated religions of small-scale societies, to the archaic religions of the ancient civilizations, and then to the salvation religions of the Axial Age. Stephen K. Sanderson draws on ideas from new cognitive and evolutionary psychological theories, as well as comparative religion, anthropology, history, and sociology. He (...) argues that religion is a biological adaptation that evolved in order to solve a number of human problems, especially those concerned with existential anxiety and ontological insecurity. Much of the focus of the book is on the Axial Age, the period in the second half of the first millennium BCE that marked the greatest religious transformation in world history. The book demonstrates that, as a result of massive increases in the scale and scope of war and large-scale urbanization, the problems of existential anxiety and ontological insecurity became particularly acute. These changes evoked new religious needs, especially for salvation and release from suffering. As a result entirely new religions-Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism-arose to help people cope with the demands of the new historical era. (shrink)

The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic restricted public worship in many religious communities. This article explores how the amateur singers in Eastern Orthodox Christian church choirs coped with the 2-month liturgical lockdown in Finland during the spring of 2020. During the lockdown, only a limited number of singers were allowed to perform in worship, which was live streamed on social media. Based on a mixed-methods online survey, the article focuses on the psychological impact of the lockdown on individual church (...) singers; their views of the spiritual, physical, mental and communal dimensions of singing in worship; and the methods of coping that their responses reveal. The analysis uses the religious coping theory developed by Kenneth Pargament and his colleagues. The results highlight how the church singers sought to maintain control of their lives in times of great uncertainty by focusing on individual religious activities and participating in live streamed worship. A new kind of autonomy was generated by the accessibility of worship on mobile devices, not confined to time or place. The results also reveal the negative effects of the lockdown on the social dynamics of the choir, the sense of being excluded from the community, as well as the guilt for having the privilege to sing in worship. (shrink)

As a continuation of the previous paper,Praying for a Miracle – Negative or Positive Impacts on Health Care, published in this research topic, this second paper aims at delving deeper into the same theme, but now from a simultaneously practical and conceptual approach. With that in mind, we revisit three theoretical models based on evidence, through which we can understand the role of a miracle in hospital settings and assess its impact in health contexts. For each of the models described, (...) we seek to illustrate the possible outcomes of belief in miracles as a modality of religious coping in situations of stress and suffering experienced by patients and caregivers in the face of gloomy diagnoses on coming across the limits of medicine to revert certain illnesses (e.g., child cancer) or biological conditions (e.g., fetal malformation). We posit that the judgment about how such a mechanism is healthy or not for each of the people involved (patient, caregiver, and/or health professional) depends on the modulation between the conception of the miracle adopted by the patient and/or caregiver and the concrete outcomes of the way of responding to the situations that accompany the gravity of the illness or condition. To better understand this process of psychological modulation that accompanies belief in miracles, we revisit the concepts of spirituality, religiosity, and religion, pointing out the connections and distinctions between them from a phenomenological perspective. We then present a conceptual model that takes these connections and distinctions into consideration to foster an understanding of miracles, their relations with the diversity of experiences of people who meet in hospital settings (patients, caregivers, and health professionals), and their respective impacts on healthcare. (shrink)