The Relationship between religiousness/spirituality and resilience in college students.

Abstract

Religion and spirituality offer powerful resources from which people can draw strength and support to cope with existential conflicts (Kallampally, Oakes, Lyons, Greer, & Gillespie, 2007). A number of theorists have linked religion and spirituality with resilience (Greene & Conrad, 2002), but research is needed that assesses the multidimensional nature or religiousness/spirituality and resilience among college students. The current study examined the relationship between religiousness/spirituality resilience. Three hundred seventy-five women and men from a university sample completed a demographics questionnaire, the Brief Multidimensional Measure of Religiousness/Spirituality (Fetzer Institute/NIA, 1999) and the Resilience Scale (Wagnild & Young, 1993). Hypotheses predicted that increases in different dimensions of religiousness/spirituality would be related to increases in one's level of resilience. Results indicated that the following dimensions of religiousness/spirituality were significantly related to resilience: daily spiritual experiences, values/beliefs, forgiveness, private religious practices, positive coping, religious support, and overall self-ranking. Two dimensions were not significantly related to resilience: organizational religiousness and negative coping. It was also predicted that overall spiritual self-ranking would have a stronger positive correlation with resilience than overall religious self-ranking; this hypothesis was also supported by the data. Implications for theory research, practice, andtraining are offered.