Anger toward God and well-being in Ukrainian war refugees: the serial mediating influence of faith maturity and decisional forgiveness

ABSTRACT

Experiencing war arouses feelings of injustice, which in turn can activate angry feelings towards God. The purpose of the present study was to assess the relationship between anger towards God, faith maturity, interpersonal decisional forgiveness, psychological well-being and spiritual well-being among war refugees from Ukraine who arrived in Poland and Germany. Data from paper-and-pencil surveys were collected from 243 religious people aged 18–68 years, 82% of whom were women. Structural equation modelling (SEM) showed that anger towards God is a negative predictor of faith maturity, forgiveness and well-being (including a psychological and spiritual component as a second-order variable). In addition, positive relationships were observed between faith maturity, forgiveness and well-being. Finally, faith maturity and forgiveness serially (and forgiveness also as a simple mediator) mediated the relationship of anger towards God and well-being. The results help to explain why people who feel anger towards God are still able to experience well-being, suggesting that faith maturity may inhibit angry feelings towards God through more frequent decisions to forgive abusers.

KEYWORDS:

• Ukrainian war refugees
• anger towards God
• well-being
• faith maturity
• decisional forgiveness

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the manuscript – they planned the study, collected data, conducted statistical analysis and interpretation of data: SBS-B, KK, MN, OG, LLT, and JS. The first version of the manuscript was prepared by the SBS and then revised and accepted by all authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Ethics approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Sebastian Binyamin Skalski-Bednarz

Sebastian Binyamin Skalski-Bednarz, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. His research interests include emotions, trauma effects, and psychophysiology. He is a member of the Polish Social Psychology Society. He was a research project manager in projects financed by the European Regional Found and Polish Social Psychology Society.

Karol Konaszewski

Karol Konaszewski, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Bialystok. His research focuses on the relationship between health psychology and the psychology of religion. He has done postdoctoral research internships in Germany (the Katholischen Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt), the USA (Ramapo College of New Jersey), and Czech Republic (Tomasz Bata University in Zlín). He was a research project manager in projects financed by the National Science Centre of Poland and the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Małgorzata Niesiobędzka

Małgorzata Niesiobędzka, Professor at the Faculty of Education at the University of Bialystok. Her research interests focus on the relationship between health psychology and the social. She has authored monographs and scientific articles on economic psychology, quality of life, and wellbeing. Member of the Academic Association for Economic Psychology.

Olga Gladysh

Olga Gladysh, Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Science. Her research interests include emotions, trauma effects, and social psychology. She is professionally helping migrants from Ukraine.

Loren L. Toussaint

Loren L. Toussaint, Ph.D., is an Professor at Luther College. He is interested in understanding religious and spiritual factors, especially forgiveness, and how they are related to mental and physical health and well-being. He is interested in interventions and educational methods to promote forgiveness, peace, health, and well-being.

Janusz Surzykiewicz

Janusz Surzykiewicz is a Social Scientist, Professor at the Catholic University of EichstättIngolstadt, and the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw. His main research areas focus on resource-oriented health and social behaviour issues. He combines educational and psychological aspects to analyse current questions regarding the role of positive psychology, spirituality, well-being, and social inequality, and social change. He has been involved in the development of various applied projects to support assessment and intervention. His research is multidisciplinary and internationally networked. He is a member of multiple international organisations as a specialist and coach of the global coaching associations ICI and EASC.