An Appraisal of Psychological &amp; Religious Perspectives of Self-control

Bland, Earl D.

doi:10.1007/s10943-007-9135-0

Cited by 20 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…Health behaviors are directly related to self‐control and RS predict increased self‐control (Baumeister, Bauer, & Lloyd, 2010; James & Well, 2003; McCullough & Willoughby, 2009). People with good self‐control report better mood and decreased anger, healthier personality characteristics (more agreeable, more conscientious, more emotionally stable), better family environment, better social relationships and more appropriate social behavior, and less health problems (Bland, 2008; James & Well, 2003; Tangney, Baumeister, & Boone, 2004). In addition to being related to good self‐control, RS is related to choosing healthy goals, increased motivation to pursue those goals, and increased ability to self‐monitor (McCullough & Willoughby, 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Approaching Religiosity/Spirituality and Health from the Eudaimonic Perspective

Steffen

2012

Social & Personality Psych

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Religiosity/spirituality (RS) has been linked to positive health outcomes across a large number of studies, with these effects seen most strongly among disadvantaged groups such as minorities, women, and those of lower socioeconomic status (SES). Given that disadvantaged groups typically have worse health outcomes and not better, it is not clear why the effects of RS are stronger for disadvantaged groups. A key difficulty in understanding the relationship between RS and health lies in the theoretical perspectives used in research. Health and well‐being is typically assessed from the hedonic perspective which emphasizes pleasure and happiness as important outcomes and assumes that difficult life situations contribute to negative health. The eudaimonic perspective, on the other hand, emphasizes meaning and relationships, and assumes that difficult life situations can contribute to increased meaning in life and stronger relationships. The eudaimonic perspective provides a better framework for understanding why RS leads to better health for disadvantaged groups for three reasons. First, having meaning in life and strong relationships are related to positive health outcomes and buffer the negative effects of stress. Second, in addition to being more religious, disadvantaged groups report lower hedonic well‐being and report higher eudaimonic well‐being. Third, low SES religious individuals have better than expected health outcomes and low SES materialistic individuals have worse than expected health outcomes. Overall, the eudaimonic perspective better accounts for the research findings in RS and health and provides a strong foundation for future research in this area.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Approaching Religiosity/Spirituality and Health from the Eudaimonic Perspective

Steffen

2012

Social & Personality Psych

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“…One such approach, articulated in a comprehensive review article by McCullough and Willoughby (2009), proposes that religious individuals enjoy better health and well-being because they possess a greater capacity to self-regulate (see also Bland, 2008; Geyer & Baumeister, 2005; Koole, McCullough, Kuhl & Roelofsma, 2010). The term self-regulation can be used to refer to an individual's attempt to control or alter his or her responses, typically in response to goals or standards (Hagger, Wood, Stiff & Chatzisarantis, 2010; Vohs & Baumeister, 2004).…”

Section: Self-regulation Religiosity and Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religiosity and self-control: When the going gets tough, the religious get self-regulating.

Watterson

Giesler

2012

Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

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Prior research has indicated that religiosity and ability to self-regulate are positively associated, but this relationship has yet to be addressed experimentally. To investigate whether and under what conditions higher religiosity may be associated with greater self-regulation, 75 participants either high (n = 38) or low (n = 37) in level of religiosity undertook a difficult and frustrating task requiring self-control (i.e., an unsolvable anagrams task). Before doing so, half of the participants performed a self-regulatory resource depleting task, whereas the other half proceeded directly to the difficult anagrams task. Time spent persisting on the anagrams task constituted the study's primary dependent variable. Level of religiosity interacted with level of self-regulatory resources such that when participants had not been depleted, level of religiosity was unrelated to task persistence. However, when participants' self-regulatory resources had first been depleted, participants high in religiosity persisted significantly longer on the anagrams task compared with participants low in religiosity, an effect that remained significant even after controlling for potential confounds. This research suggests highly religious individuals possess greater self-regulatory ability, particularly under circumstances of reduced self-regulatory resources. Greater self-regulatory ability, in turn, may help explain the health benefits that religious individuals often enjoy.

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“…This assertion, based on Dynamic system theory, is familiar to psychologists who work in the area of self-regulation and behavioral adaptation, but it is rarely applied to religious data (Carver 2004;Carver and Scheier 1998;but see Geyer and Baumeister 2005;Bland 2008; see also Heatherton and Baumeister 1996). However , the dynamic system provides an ontological context within which both pleasure (or pain) and happiness are mere affective signals and in which skill or competence promotes both positive affect (information) and virtue as output.…”

Section: A Theory Of Self-controlmentioning

confidence: 99%