1. Introduction
Religion is an integral part of the lives of many people worldwide (
Zhang et al. 2018) and has beneficial effects on their personal adaptation (
Zarzycka and Zietek 2019). There is considerable literature that associates religion and spirituality with physical (
Hill and Pargament 2003), mental (
Krause 2003), and relational health (
Marks and Dollahite 2011;
Marks et al. 2019). Religion helps individuals cope with stressors (
Koenig 2009), maintain a sense of control (
Sasaki and Kim 2011), regain psychological balance after experiencing stress (
Zinnbauer and Pargament 1998), find meaning in life (
Pargament 1997), deal with a serious disease (
Cassibba et al. 2014), and preserve social interactions (
Páez et al. 2018). Research in this regard shows that the efficiency of religion or spirituality is bound to the degree to which it is combined with the person’s existence (
Pargament 2002). However, a growing number of findings also test possible problematic types of religiosity (
Abu-Raiya et al. 2018), which denote difficulties, tensions, and strains regarding sacred matters (
Exline et al. 2000;
Wilt et al. 2019a,
2019b) and are often referred to as religious or spiritual (R/S) struggles.
R/S strains may manifest in one’s perceived relationship with God, interpersonal struggles with individuals or institutions with respect to religious issues, and intrapsychic confusion expressed through doubts about one’s beliefs, sense of guilt after committing offenses, lack of ultimate meaning, and negative emotions (
Exline et al. 2000;
Wilt et al. 2019a). Although R/S struggles often appear to stem from stressful life events (
Trevino et al. 2019), which are typically associated with higher levels of depression (
Ellison et al. 2013;
Vandecreek et al. 2004;
Vasegh et al. 2012), anxiety (
Abu-Raiya et al. 2015), alcohol problems (
Stauner et al. 2019), post-traumatic stress disorder (
Evans et al. 2018), suicidal ideation (2000), and increased risk of dying of a life-threatening illness (
Pargament et al. 2001), there is empirical evidence that religious strains can be turning points in life (
Wilt et al. 2019b) as well. In fact, recent work suggests that R/S struggles may be a font of well-being (
Szcześniak et al. 2019;
Zarzycka and Zietek 2019) and comfort (
Van Tongeren et al. 2013). They may also be a determinant of spiritual growth (
Exline et al. 2017;
Park and Cohen 1993) and transformation (
Wilt et al. 2019b). People may come out of R/S struggles with a deeper sense of self and individual strength (
Wilt et al. 2019a).
While some studies have shown connections between religious comfort/struggle and different dimensions of well-being (
Abu-Raiya et al. 2015;
Currier et al. 2019;
Krause et al. 2018;
Park et al. 2011;
Wilt et al. 2016,
2017), only a few have investigated what makes satisfaction increase or decrease during a religious strain experience (
Zarzycka and Puchalska-Wasyl 2019). Although the mechanism linking religiosity with psychological adjustment still remains unclear (
Parenteau et al. 2011) because this relationship is very complex (
Hebert et al. 2006), some researchers have proven that mediators or moderators play an important role in this association (
Zarzycka and Zietek 2019). For example, internal dialogical activity turned out to be a mediator of the association between R/S struggles and psychological well-being (
Zarzycka and Puchalska-Wasyl 2019). Similarly,
Szcześniak et al. (
2019) confirmed that gratitude, which demonstrates itself as a willingness to identify the undeserved increase of value in one’s experience, is important to life satisfaction from the perspective of religious strains. In other studies (
Wilt et al. 2019a), meeting with the “sacred” (God, experience associated with the divine, transcendent reality) was related to an increase of positive outcomes at both the interindividual (social well-being) and intraindividual (personal well-being) levels.
Because people’s coping reactions to stressful circumstances are determining factors of their well-being (
Lazarus 1966), we expected that different secular coping strategies, also called non-religious (
McDougle et al. 2016), could be potential mediators between religious problems/tensions and life satisfaction. Indeed, according to the Transactional Model of Stress and Coping (
Lazarus and Folkman 1984), cognitive appraisals and behavioral efforts may change the relationship between a specific stressor and health, contributing to an alleviation or reduction of stress. Besides these theoretical considerations, a large body of cross-sectional and longitudinal studies furnish empirical proof for the mediatory effect of coping on stressful events and quality of life. For example, in their study of parents with autistic children,
Dardas and Ahmad (
2013) observed that accepting responsibility, conceptualized as the recognition of one’s input to the problematic situation, was a mediator strategy in the relation between stress and quality of life. Similarly, in their research among caregiving spouses,
Pruchno and Resch (
1989) discovered that wishfulness and intrapsychic strategies mediated the association between stress and well-being, operationalized as anxiety and depression. Moreover, the coping process was found to mediate the hardiness–illness association (
Williams et al. 1992).
So far, to our knowledge, only a few studies (
Parenteau et al. 2011) have addressed whether different forms of secular coping strategies can likely be mediators of the connection between religious comfort/struggling and life satisfaction. As we chose a cross-sectional design to study this mediatory model, providing a substantial rationale, theoretical and/or based on empirical evidence, for the temporal ordering specifications of the examined variables is required (
Szcześniak et al. 2019), specifically R/S struggles and life satisfaction, R/S struggles and coping strategies, and coping strategies and life satisfaction. First, a number of studies have shown that religious involvement is believed to promote and foster adolescent and adult well-being (
Ferris 2002;
Abu-Raiya et al. 2015;
Salifu Yendork and Somhlaba 2017), the social dimension of quality of life (
Idler et al. 2009), and life satisfaction (
Sawatzky et al. 2005). In their meta-analysis of 51 studies,
Sawatzky et al. (
2005) found a moderate effect size of spirituality on quality of life (
r = −0.34, 95% CI: 0.28‒0.40) among all age groups. On the other hand, persisting religious tensions with God or unresolved conflicts with other people over faith may negatively influence personal well-being (
Mahoney and Cano 2014).
Abu-Raiya et al. (
2015) obtained significant negative correlations between R/S struggle subscales and the indices of well-being in a nationwide sample of adults. Second, some researchers have suggested that secular coping strategies may accompany R/S strains (
McDougle et al. 2016).
In turn, other theorists consider the way in which religion is involved in the coping process and contributes to the regulation of emotions (
Pargament et al. 1990).
Ai et al. (
2007) suggested paying more attention to assessing the mediation of faith on health through considering secular mediators. Third, many findings have shown that active styles of coping in contrast to passive forms tend to have a beneficial effect on psychological outcomes (
Baitar et al. 2018;
Kim et al. 2010). Moreover, meaningful coping that consists of making sense of a stressful event may result in higher levels of life satisfaction (
Dezutter et al. 2017).
Pakenham (
2008) argued that the coping response of recognition was linked to greater life satisfaction in the caretakers of people affected by multiple sclerosis.
Based on the literature, four hypotheses were formulated:
Hypothesis 1 (H1): Religious comfort resulting from confidence and a relationship with God is positively related to life satisfaction, while fear/guilt, negative emotions toward divinity, and negative social interactions concerning religion are associated negatively with life satisfaction.
Hypothesis 2 (H2): Religious comfort is positively connected to religious coping and secular coping strategies—active coping, planning, positive reframing, acceptance, humor, emotional support, and instrumental support—and negatively related to self-distraction, venting, behavioral disengagement, denial, and substance abuse.
Hypothesis 3 (H3): Fear/guilt, negative emotions toward God, and negative social interactions related to religion are negatively related to active coping, planning, positive reframing, acceptance, humor, emotional support, instrumental support, and religious coping and positively related to self-distraction, venting, behavioral disengagement, denial, substance abuse, and self-blame.
Hypothesis 4 (H4): Coping strategies mediate the effect on life satisfaction of religious comfort, fear/guilt, negative emotions toward God, and negative social interactions related to religion.
3. Results
Variables concerning religious struggles, coping strategies, and life satisfaction were estimated for the degree of skewness and kurtosis indexes. According to the rule of thumb, we adopted values less than ± 2 as a fairly normal distribution (
Bachman 2004). Because only one value of kurtosis went over this limit of ±2 (
Table 1), we considered our data to be normally distributed.
In line with our hypothesis (H1), religious comfort correlated positively with life satisfaction. Instead, fear/guilt, negative emotions toward God, and negative social interactions surrounding religion correlated negatively with life satisfaction (
Table 2). Statistics showed that these associations were significant at
p-values < 0.01. In other words, it was demonstrated that respondents who display a greater faith in God experience reduced anxiety or remorse, do not perceive God as forsaking people, and do not have adverse emotions toward fellow congregants or religious institutions, declare higher life satisfaction. With respect to Hypothesis H2, religious comfort was positively connected to active coping, planning, positive reframing, acceptance, emotional support, instrumental support, and religious coping. Moreover, religious comfort negatively correlated with self-distraction, venting, behavioral disengagement, denial, substance abuse, self-blame, and humor. The only result that did not confirm the assumptions of Hypothesis H2 was the negative correlation between religious comfort and humor.
In terms of Hypothesis H3, the results largely confirmed our assumptions. Self-distraction, venting, behavioral disengagement, denial, substance abuse, self-blame, and religious coping correlated positively with negative dimensions of religious struggle. Active coping, positive reframing, and emotional support were negatively linked to three dimensions of religious strain. Planning and acceptance were negatively related to fear and negative emotions toward God. Humor was related negatively to negative emotions toward God and institutions. Instrumental support was associated negatively only with negative emotions toward God. Religious coping was associated positively with fear and negatively with negative emotions toward God and institutions.
In relation to the issue of multicollinearity and confounding variables, although some authors put the cut-off for VIFs at 10 or greater, we adopted in this research an index of 2.5, following Johnston and colleagues’ (2018) suggestion that higher values might indicate considerable collinearity. At the same time, we assumed a tolerance value of less than 0.2 as a problem of a possible multicollinearity (
Mehmeoglu and Jakobsen 2017). Considering that the examination of multiple regression produced a VIF of 1.01‒2.39 and a tolerance rate of between 0.41 and 0.99, multicollinearity indexes showed minor indication of multicollinearity for the current data. Mahalanobis’ distance method was performed, employing the chi-square distribution with a highly robust estimate for a case being an outlier (
p < 0.001) (
Fidell and Tabachnick 2003). Only 21 of 744 cases were detected as suspected multivariate outliers. Despite this, because a reanalysis with the outliers removed showed minimal changes in correlations, regressions, and mediations, we chose to not remove them from the sample. Additionally, because our dataset was large enough, it matched the population from which it was taken, and the probability of outlying values increased (
Osborne and Overbay 2004). In addition, Cook’s value (between 0.000 and 0.025) was well below the point where the researcher should be concerned (less than 1) (
Fidell and Tabachnick 2003), signifying that the cases were not potentially questionable with regard to holding an undue impact on the model. Hierarchical regression computations displayed that sex, age, and subjective opinion about the intensity of one’s religiosity did not make a substantial input into the model, accounting for only 6% of the variance (
R2 = 0.060): sex (β = 0.018, t = 0.601,
p = 0.548), age (β = 0.034, t = 1.161,
p = 0.246), and the subjective opinion about the intensity of one’s religiosity (β = 0.041, t = 0.929,
p = 0.353). The predictor variables explained a further 42.5% of the variance, in spite of monitoring for the effects of sex, age, and subjective opinion about the intensity of one’s religiosity.
With the aim of additional inquiry into the association between the estimation of religious struggle and life satisfaction (H4), coping strategies were submitted as a prospective mediator between the independent variables (dimensions of religious strains) and the dependent variable (satisfaction with life).
Table 3,
Table 4,
Table 5 and
Table 6 show the statistics concomitant with each mediation path.
The findings, gained as a result of bootstrap sampling (5000), with a 95% CI, revealed a significant role of all coping strategies, except for (1) venting and religious coping in the association between religious comfort and life satisfaction (
Table 3); (2) humor, instrumental support, and venting in the relationship between fear/guilt and life satisfaction (
Table 4); (3) humor and venting in the relationship between negative emotions toward God and life satisfaction (
Table 5); and (4) planning, active coping, instrumental support, and venting in the relationship between negative social interactions surrounding religion and satisfaction (
Table 6).
According to the obtained results, it can be cautiously affirmed that all coping strategies were mediators at least once, except venting. In all cases where no mediation occurred, the CI enclosed a zero, indicating that the indirect effect was insignificant. In other cases, the c path fell to c′ as a consequence of containing the mediator.
4. Discussion
Only a few studies have assessed how religious/spiritual struggles are connected to positive dimensions of human life (
Zarzycka and Puchalska-Wasyl 2019). Even less research has dealt with the mediation role of secular coping strategies and their effects on the interrelation between religious/spiritual struggle and life satisfaction. The effects of the current study largely confirm the adopted hypotheses, which are in line with previous studies.
The first finding (H1) that emerged from our study is that religious comfort positively correlated with satisfaction, while fear/guilt, negative emotions toward God, and negative social interactions involving religion were associated negatively with life satisfaction. Our outcomes mirror results obtained in some former studies (
Ayele et al. 1999), showing that people who experienced intrinsic religious activity, such as prayer, meditation, or Bible reading, declared higher life satisfaction, even after controlling for age, gender, health, and marital status. They also confirm the widely accepted explanation that positive forms of religious coping, considered a kind of religious struggle, may contribute to psychological adjustment (
Pargament et al. 2001) and indicate a secure and confiding relationship with God (
Hebert et al. 2009). Moreover, experimental studies (
Pirutinsky et al. 2019a) specified that individuals with more positive implicit and explicit attitudes toward God predicted higher life satisfaction. In other analyses (
Pirutinsky et al. 2019b), attachment to God was found to be the strongest predictor of mental health among both more traditional and less traditional Jewish believers. It can be concluded that the awareness of being in a close relationship with God, based on trust and not fear or negative emotions, may lead to a sense of satisfaction with one’s own life. Therefore, our results seem to be important because there are some outcomes that report null or even opposite associations between positive religiosity and adjustment (
Park et al. 2018). In other studies (
Hebert et al. 2009), negative religious coping predicted worse satisfaction after controlling for demographic covariates. In fact, the authors showed that people who perceived God as distant and who expressed anger toward God declared lower well-being over time. Thus, a less secure relationship with divinity, which is reflected through negative religious coping, may lead to a drop in life satisfaction.
The second finding (H2) shows that religious comfort was positively related to active and religious coping, planning, positive reframing, acceptance, and emotional and instrumental support. Simultaneously, religious comfort was negatively related to self-distraction, venting, behavioral disengagement, denial, substance abuse, self-blame, and humor. Similar outcomes were obtained by
Umezawa et al. (
2012), who found that conviction about divine control was positively associated with coping strategies with some specific approaches (positive reframing, planning, and active coping) in Latina, African American, and non-Hispanic White older women. In other studies (
Krägeloh et al. 2012), religious coping was positively linked to five approach strategies (active coping, planning, positive reframing, emotional support, and instrumental support) and venting. It should be emphasized that in the current research, as many as seven out of eight coping dimensions, according to the two-dimensional model of
Krohne (
1993) and
Roth and Cohen (
1986), were positively correlated with religious comfort.
In terms of Hypothesis H3, the results largely confirmed our assumptions. Self-distraction, venting, behavioral disengagement, denial, substance abuse, self-blame, and religious coping correlated positively with fear/guilt, negative emotions toward God, and negative social interactions related to religion. Similar results were obtained by
Ai et al. (
2010), who found that spiritual struggle positively correlated with avoidant coping (
r = 0.30,
p = 0.001). This result is quite understandable if we consider that spiritual strains indicate conflicts of values and beliefs and signal a decline in emotional functioning. In another study (
Terreri and Glenwick 2013), negative religious coping was positively and significantly associated with cognitive and behavioral avoidant coping among adolescents. Moreover, both of these variables correlated negatively with their life satisfaction.
Howell et al. (
2015) found that parentally bereaved children in the adaptive functioning group had lower avoidant coping and higher scores on religiosity.
With respect to Hypothesis H4, the present study confirms to a large degree that different forms of secular coping strategies, except venting, can be potential mediators of the association between religious comfort/struggling and satisfaction. This might be related to the fact that satisfaction during the experience of dealing with substantial difficulties in one’s goal-related efforts (
Lazarus 1966) requires a process of executing an adequate response to a stressor. For example,
Canada et al. (
2006) found that the positive association between religiosity/spirituality and functional well-being and religiosity/spirituality and overall quality of life were mediated through the use of active coping in a group of women directly prior to a course of adjuvant chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. Similarly,
Pérez et al. (
2009) showed through a path model that acceptance coping mediated the relationship between spiritual striving, renamed from spiritual growth, and depressive symptoms. In another study,
Parenteau et al. (
2011) observed that individuals who retained negative emotions and felt as if they were being punished by God also engaged in negative cognitions, which in turn were related to negative psychological adjustment. Moreover,
Nairn and Merluzzi (
2003) noticed that non-religious self-efficacy was a mediating factor between religious coping and adjustment.
Zwingmann et al. (
2006) indicated that only depressive coping, as a non-religious coping style, completely mediated the relationship between religious coping and psychosocial outcomes of anxiety and depression. Another secular coping strategy, called active problem-focused coping, did not have such a mediating effect. In this sense, our study revealed that not only active coping, but also almost all “beneficial” and less adaptive types of coping strategies, mediated the relationship between religious/spiritual struggles and life satisfaction. Therefore, the presence of different secular strategies is not indifferent to the way that the religious and spiritual perception of the relation with God and religious community relates to the personal evaluation of someone’s life.