Hope and positive religious coping as predictors of social justice commitment

Abstract

The present study tested a theoretical model of dispositional hope and positive religious coping as unique predictors of social justice commitment over and above impression management in a sample of graduate students (N = 214) in helping professions at an Evangelical Protestant university in the USA. This empirical study utilised a cultural psychology approach with a theoretical framework developed from (a) an earlier cultural psychology study of hope and social justice using the social philosophies of Martin Luther King, Jr, Cornel West, and Paulo Freire and (b) several liberation and Pietistic theologians. Results supported the discriminant validity hypothesis with dispositional hope and positive religious coping each predicting social justice commitment over and above a measure of spiritual impression management. Implications are considered for contextually sensitive training and future empirical and interdisciplinary research on social justice commitment.

Keywords:

• social justice
• hope
• religious coping
• spirituality
• training
• cultural psychology

Funding

This project was supported by a grant from the Fetzer Institute (2266).