Empowerment or dependency? The religion/religiosity–mastery relationship.

Abstract

Whereas religion/religiosity (R/R) tends to have a positive relationship with psychological well-being in general, the relationship between R/R and Mastery is less clear. Research investigating R/R–mastery has reported a positive, nonsignificant, and negative relationship, and often uses informal composite measures to assess R/R without a substantive discussion surrounding their suitability. The current study used a national Canadian sample (N = 12,930) to investigate the moderating effect of socioeconomic status and religious affiliation on R/R–mastery. Researchers used dual analytical strategies (individual R/R predictors [Model 1], a composite R/R variable [Model 2]) in order to investigate the R/R–mastery relationship. In Model 1, R/R variables were associated with lower Mastery levels and there was support for socioeconomic status moderating the R/R–mastery relationship. In Model 2, R/R was again negatively associated with Mastery, but socioeconomic status did not act as a moderator for the R/R–mastery relationship. Results from Model 2 also suggested that while Christian groups experience R/R negatively, the nonreligious experience R/R nonsignificantly. The discussion noted the importance of choice of R/R measurement, the limited role that R/R had on Mastery, whether structural resources are important in the R/R–mastery relationship, and the need to for researchers to attend to religious affiliation when discussing the R/R–mastery relationship.

Religiosity and Individual Agency: Denominational Affiliation, Religious Action, and Sense of Control (SOC) in Life

“…Firstly, the literature is loaded with agnosticism. It has shown that effects of religiosity on SOC are varying (i.e., sometimes positive; other times negative or non-existent) from one set of empirical measures of religiosity to another or from one study population to another (Ellison and Burdette 2012;Jung 2019;Pargament 2002;Schieman 2008;Schieman et al 2005;Pascoe et al 2016;Speed and Fowler 2017;Clements 2014). Based on these inconsistencies, the current literature suggests that the sociological imagination of actors' SOC along with their submission to sociality, especially to deity as its religious kind, is doubtful.…”