Although religiousness is tied to coping, little work examines the role of specific religious beliefs in the coping process. Applying the transactional model of coping, positivity of God image and vertical religious focus were assessed in a national sample of 103 parents of children with disabilities. Controlling for general religiousness, these specific beliefs were correlated with parents' appraisals. Positive God image was associated positively with appraisals that the disability is a challenge, a benefit, and God is in control; it was associated negatively with loss appraisal. Vertical religious focus was associated positively with the appraisal that God is in control. Consistent with the model, appraisals mediated the relation between specific beliefs and coping strategies. Loss appraisal mediated the relation of vertical focus and God image with engagement coping and the appraisal that God is in control further explained the relation between vertical focus and engagement coping.Religion powerfully influences how individuals cope with stress (Pargament, 1997). It explains unique variance in coping and predicts outcomes beyond secular coping (Pargament, 2002). Despite this wealth of research demonstrating that religion is linked with coping, much less is known about how religion enters and forms the coping process. This study addresses this question using a cognitive appraisal approach, providing a broader evaluation of religion's role in coping. We test how specific religious beliefs are related to appraisals of stressors, how these appraisals relate to coping, and how these beliefs fit into the whole coping process. Moreover, we explore the role that specific religious beliefs play beyond that of general religiousness.
THE TRANSACTIONAL MODEL OF STRESS AND COPINGCognitive approaches to stress and coping assert that stressors are stressful only if an individual perceives them as such (Bandura, 1977;Roesch, Weiner, & Vaughn, 2002). Among the best-supported cognitive approaches is Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) transactional model. It features cognitive appraisals of a stressor as mediators of the relations between individual difference variables and coping strategies used; these strategies then influence various outcomes.