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.