Religious support and psychosocial well-being among a religious Jewish population

Abstract

The three subscales of the Religious Support Scale assess perceived support from a person's religious community, religious leaders, and God. This three-factor structure was replicated in the current study with a sample of 277 religious Jewish persons residing in Israel. Hierarchical canonical analysis showed that, even after controlling for general social support, Religious Leader and God Support were related to lower emotional distress, Religious Leader and Religious Community Support contributed to a higher level of life satisfaction, and Religious Community and God Support contributed to the prediction of perceived health. Findings are discussed in terms of religious support's generalizability as a psychosocial resource for persons of various faiths.

The Multi-Faith Religious Support Scale: Validation with a Sample of Muslim Women

“…This technique (Gorsuch, 1983) is less widely known than confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) but has been used in multiple studies (e.g., Bjorck & Kim, 2009;Lazar & Bjorck, 2008;Fiala et al, 2002;Lucente, Fals-Stewart, Richards, & Goscha, 2001;Rodenburg & Fantuzzo, 1993). Gorsuch (1997) noted that, compared to CFA, CMFGA more explicitly links to item analysis.…”

“…Religious support has not only been shown to be derived from relationships with fellow adherents and religious leaders but also from one's perceived relationship with God, at least in Judeo-Christian groups (Fiala, Bjorck, & Gorsuch, 2002;Lazar & Bjorck, 2008;Loewenthal, MacLeod, Goldblatt, Lubitsh, & Valentine, 2000;Maton, 1989). No published quantitative studies have assessed the extent to which Muslims perceive Allah as supportive, however.…”

“…Whereas Lazar and Bjorck's (2008) study supports the value of adapting specific versions of the RSS for specific faiths, this approach requires scale modification for each different faith group and does not permit direct quantitative comparison across multiple faiths. Thus, Lazar and Bjorck recommended the second option for scale modification.…”

“…Regarding the first option, replacing Christian terms with another faith's, Lazar and Bjorck (2008) used this approach to assess religious support among a sample of Hebrew-speaking religious Jews living in Israel. They added instructions stating "the term God refers to the supreme power (HKB''H [a Hebrew acronym for The Holy One Blessed Be He], Hashem, Elokim, Creator, Master of the World, etc.)"…”

Diferencias en felicidad general entre las personas sin hogar en Madrid (España)

“…En línea con lo señalado por diferentes autores sobre la relación entre religiosidad y felicidad general (Lazar y Bjorck, 2008;Myers, 2000), las personas sin hogar en Madrid que se identificaban con alguna religión manifestaron en un mayor porcentaje ser felices, en tanto que quienes no se identificaban con ninguna religión tendían a considerarse infelices en un mayor porcentaje.…”