Psychological Perspectives on Religion and Well-Being

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444). This special issue belongs to the section "Religions and Health/Psychology/Social Sciences".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 August 2023) | Viewed by 2638

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
School of Psychology and Therapeutic Studies, Leeds Trinity University, Leeds LS18 5HD, UK
Interests: psychology of religion; mental health; culture; psychometrics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of the journal Religion is entitled Psychological Perspectives on Religion and Well-Being. This collection is focused on assembling a selection of contemporary reviews and empirical studies that are grounded in psychological theories and methods that have examined the relationship between religion and well-being (see Abdel-Khalek, 2020 for definitions). The purpose of the present issue is to enrich the scholarly debate and understanding of the variety of different psychological perspectives related to religion and well-being.

Located within the psychology of religion (Hood, Hill, & Spilka, 2018), and specifically within the burgeoning literature on religion and health (Koenig, Al-Zaben, & VanderWeele, 2020; Koenig, King, & Carson, 2012), there has been an ongoing examination of the relationship between religion and well-being. Such research has employed various conceptualisations and operationalisations of both religion and well-being within various cultural and religious settings employing a variety of samples (for example, Abu-Raiya, Sasson, Pargament, et al., 2020; Allen, Ming, & Hyde, 2023; Ardelt & Ferrari, 2019; Boppana & Gross, 2019; Villani, Sorgente, Iannello et al., 2019). In summary, such research has reported a consistent positive relationship between scores on various measures of religion and well-being. However, it has been noted that “… the robustness, universality, and methodological specificity of the religion-well-being relation remains an outstanding question” (p. 4, Hoogeveen, Sarafoglou, Aczel et al., 2022). This Special Issue will explore such matters to enhance the knowledge base pertaining to a better understanding of the psychological perspectives on religion and well-being.

We are pleased to invite you to submit a review or empirical study that is grounded in psychological theories and methods that have examined the relationship between religion and well-being.

In this Special Issue, original reviews and research articles are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

  • Religion and well-being in different cultural contexts.
  • Religion and well-being in different religious contexts.
  • Religion and well-being in clinical and non-clinical samples.
  • Measurement issues concerning religion and well-being.
  • Cross-cultural studies examining religion and well-being.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400-600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editor (c.lewis@leedstrinity.ac.uk) or to the Religions editorial office (religions@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editor for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the special issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

References

Abdel-Khalek, A. M. (2020). Religiosity and well-being. In Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences (pp. 4407-4415). Springer International Publishing.

Abu-Raiya, H., Sasson, T., Pargament, K. I., & Rosmarin, D. H. (2020). Religious coping and health and well-being among Jews and Muslims in Israel. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 30(3), 202-215.

Allen, G. K., Ming, M., Hyde, S., Bozzelli, A., Rodgers, G., Sagebin, F. M., & Thompson, M. (2023). Investigating religious commitment, perceived religious oppression, self-esteem, depression, and life satisfaction among Latter-day Saint women. Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health, 1-11.

Ardelt, M., & Ferrari, M. (2019). Effects of wisdom and religiosity on subjective well-being in old age and young adulthood: Exploring the pathways through mastery and purpose in life. International Psychogeriatrics, 31(4), 477-489.

Boppana, S., & Gross, A. M. (2019). The impact of religiosity on the psychological well-being of LGBT Christians. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health, 23(4), 412-426.

Hood Jr, R. W., Hill, P. C., & Spilka, B. (2018). The psychology of religion: An empirical approach. Guilford Publications.

Hoogeveen, S., Sarafoglou, A., Aczel, B., Aditya, Y., Alayan, A. J., Allen, P. J., ... & Nilsonne, G. (2022). A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 1-47.

Koenig, H. G., Al-Zaben, F., & VanderWeele, T. J. (2020). Religion and psychiatry: Recent developments in research. BJPsych Advances, 26(5), 262-272.

Koenig, H. G., King, D., & Carson, V. B. (2012). Handbook of religion and health. Oxford University Press.

Villani, D., Sorgente, A., Iannello, P., & Antonietti, A. (2019). The role of spirituality and religiosity in subjective well-being of individuals with different religious status. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1525.

Prof. Dr. Christopher Alan Lewis
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • religion
  • well-being
  • mental health
  • culture
  • measurement
  • psychometrics

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 447 KiB  
Article
The Effectiveness of Spirituality-Centered Cognitive Therapy on Body Image, Sexual Function, Illness Perception and Intrusive Thoughts in Iranian Women after Mastectomy
by Mehdi Sharifi, Harold G. Koenig, Mahboubeh Dadfar, Yahya Turan and Alireza Ghorbani
Religions 2024, 15(5), 578; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15050578 - 3 May 2024
Viewed by 556
Abstract
Spirituality-centered cognitive therapy refers to the way in which people search for and express the meaning and purpose of their lives, as well as experience connection with themselves, others, nature, and spirituality. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of spirituality-centered cognitive therapy [...] Read more.
Spirituality-centered cognitive therapy refers to the way in which people search for and express the meaning and purpose of their lives, as well as experience connection with themselves, others, nature, and spirituality. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of spirituality-centered cognitive therapy on body image, sexual function, disease perception, and disturbing thoughts in women after mastectomy. This was semi-experimental research, which was conducted via a pre-test–post-test method and had a control group. The samples included 85 women with breast cancer who had undergone mastectomy, and, based on the inclusion criteria, 78 individuals were randomly selected and were then divided into two groups (39 individuals in the intervention group and 39 individuals in the control group). The intervention group received eight 120 min sessions of spirituality-centered cognitive therapy, and the control group did not receive any training. Data were collected using questionnaires on illness perception, body image, sexual function, and rumination and were then analyzed by multivariate analysis of variance with repeated measurements using SPSS-24. Before the training, there was no significant difference between the intervention and control groups in the scores obtained by the scales. After the intervention, the mean scores in all scales except sexual function were significantly different from the control group. Therefore, spirituality-centered cognitive therapy may be useful for improving negative psychological symptoms among women in Iran with breast cancer after mastectomy surgery. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Psychological Perspectives on Religion and Well-Being)
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Review

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14 pages, 331 KiB  
Review
The Multidimensional Measurement of Religious/Spiritual Well-Being: Recent Developments in Scale Validation and Clinical Applications
by Human Friedrich Unterrainer
Religions 2023, 14(7), 882; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14070882 - 7 Jul 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1596
Abstract
Religiosity and spirituality (R/S) have been described extensively as being an integral part of subjective well-being and mental health, especially in Anglo-American regions. Accordingly, the Multidimensional Inventory for Religious/Spiritual Well-Being (MI-RSWB) was developed in the European context to be able to contribute to [...] Read more.
Religiosity and spirituality (R/S) have been described extensively as being an integral part of subjective well-being and mental health, especially in Anglo-American regions. Accordingly, the Multidimensional Inventory for Religious/Spiritual Well-Being (MI-RSWB) was developed in the European context to be able to contribute to the further development of this research field by means of a validated measure. In this paper, after an introduction to basic considerations about the scale, more recent developments (from 2012 to 2022) regarding the use of the MI-RSWB are presented. Thus, it is intended to focus here on (1) the presentation of standard values for the MI-RSWB for the Austrian general population, (2) several scale translations into different languages, (3) more recent data on the relationship between RSWB, personality, and mental health, and (4) the potential clinical applications of the RSWB dimensions. As a conclusion, further potential applications of the RSWB concept are discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Psychological Perspectives on Religion and Well-Being)
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