Exploring religious and/or spiritual identities: part 2 – a descriptive analysis of those who are at risk for health problems

ABSTRACT

Previous analysis of the data that are used in this study reveal that compared to people who self-identify as religious and spiritual, spiritual only, and neither religious nor spiritual, study participants who are religious only are more likely to experience physical and mental health problems. The purpose of this study is to conduct a descriptive analyses that is designed to see why this may be so. Differences between the religious only and members of the other categories combined were assessed on seven clusters of religious/spiritual variables. The findings reveal that those who are religious only have lower levels of religious practices (e.g., church attendance), they are less likely to exchange informal support with fellow church members, they are less likely to rely on religious coping responses, and they are less likely to possess virtues that have typically been associate with greater religious and spiritual involvement (i.e., compassion, forgiveness, and humility).

KEYWORDS:

• Religious only
• religious practices
• religious beliefs
• religious coping
• church-based social support
• religious virtues

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Although the reliability estimate for the measure of humility is low by social and behavioral science standards, it is important to keep two issue in mind. First, humility is measured with only three items in the current study. This is important because, as Zeller and Carmines (1980) convincingly demonstrate, the number of items in a scale create a downward bias in estimates of Cronbach’s alpha. Cronbach’s alpha is based upon the number of items in a scale as well as the average inter-correlations among the study measures. The average inter-correlation among the items in the current study is .314. If three additional items with the same average inter-correlation were added to the items in the current study, the reliability estimate would jump to approximately .720, which is acceptable by most standards. This is one reason why Sijtsma (2009) concludes that, “Alpha is a lower bound to the reliability, in many cases, even a gross underestimate … ” (p. 107). Second, Tangney (2000) argues that humility is a complex construct that is comprised of six dimensions. This observation is noteworthy because, as Cortina (1993) points out, estimates of Cronbach’s alpha tends to decline as the number of dimensions in a construct increase. In fact, as Watson (2012) maintains, “ … coefficient alpha can substantially underestimate the reliability of multidimensional scales” (p. 361).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by John Templeton Foundation: [Grant Number 40077].