Masters Theses

Date of Award

8-2002

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Kathleen Lawler

Abstract

The problems associated with the pathology model have led to an increased number of studies devoted to positive psychology. Among the positive factors that have been hypothesized to promote health is spirituality. The primary focus of this study was to investigate the role of spirituality/religion in self-reported physical and mental health, and to determine whether there is an association between an individual's spirituality and cardiovascular responses to two stressors. Fifty-two females participated in both a betrayal interview and a structured interview. Using the Spiritual Well-being Scale as a measure of spirituality, blood pressure and heart rate were assessed. The existential well-being subscale was more consistently and strongly related to both physical and mental health than either the religious well-being subscale or the spiritual well-being total score. The existential subscale was also associated with lower heart rate in the recovery and structured interview periods. Diastolic blood pressure was significantly higher across all four time periods for low spiritual persons as opposed to high spiritual persons. In addition, participants low in religiousness had greater systolic blood pressure reactivity than high religious groups, and participants low in existential well-being, or spirituality had elevated levels of heart rate reactivity in response to the brief structured interview. The role of the coherence hypothesis, the moderation of hostility, and allostatic load are discussed.

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