Religious Commitment and Social Relationships: Their Relative Contributions to Self-Esteem of Catholic Sisters in Later Life

SUMMARY

In this paper we examine religious commitment and social relationships of Catholic sisters and the relative contributions of these and other variables to their self-esteem in later life. Using a sample of 377 Catholic sisters with an average age of 63.5, we conducted a series of a hierarchical recession analyses to examine the relative contributions of blocks of socio-demographic variables, religious commitment variables, personal relationship variables, and psychological variables to self-esteem. In the overall model, the extent to which relationships were rewarding, perceptions of themselves as women, coping strategies, and perceived self-control were significant and thus predictive of the self-esteem of Catholic sisters.