Religious Coping and Church‐Based Social Support as Predictors of Mental Health Outcomes: Testing a Conceptual Model

Abstract

This study assesses religious coping and church-based social support as mechanisms explaining religious benefits to mental health. We build on recent research and test an explanatory model using the 1998 General Social Survey. The model considers both institutional and individual aspects of religiousness, and their interrelations, as predictors of mental health outcomes. It considers negative effects of religion along with the well-known positive effects. We found that benefits of attendance, a measure of institutional participation, are mediated by church-based social support. Benefits of prayer, an individual form of religiousness, are mediated by the similarly privatized religious coping. Institutional measures of religion were found to impact individuals' religious coping styles. Implications are suggested for the scientific study of religion as well as for the applied efforts of clergy, pastoral counselors, and lay church members concerned with improving religious benefits.

Does Religious Involvement Generate or Inhibit Fear of Crime?

“…More personal religious activities such as prayer, meditation, and reading sacred texts, for example, may serve as routine activities that alleviate one's fears. Individualized religious coping activities such as prayer have also been found to reduce distress [36,37]. However, the current study does suggest that religious involvement is not spuriously related to fear of crime via community attachment or conservative identity.…”

Religion, Spirituality, and Mental Health

“…Research on prayer in relation to mental health has typically relied on relatively simple questionnaire items which depend upon self report of frequency of prayer (Benda, 2002;Cook et al, 1997;Nooney et al, 2002). However, the definition of prayer is itself a complex issue and can end up sounding very similar to processes which we would normally consider to be psychological or psychotherapeutic, rather than spiritual or religious.…”

Caste, Class, and Urbanization: The Shaping of Religious Community in Contemporary India

“…Scholars know that social capital can have positive results in areas ranging from the job search, social support, to mental health (Granovetter 1973;Hurlbert et al 2000;Nooney and Woodrum 2002), as well as negative consequences for those to whom social capital does not accrue (Beyerlein and Hipp 2005;Paxton 2002), confirming that ''sociability cuts both ways'' (Portes 1998: 18). In order to better understand how social capital correlates with varying outcomes, scholars differentiate between two types of social capital: (1) bridging capital, in which social interaction crosses group boundaries; and (2) bonding capital, in which interactions are frequent and between people with the same characteristics.…”