Is religiousness a unique predictor of self-esteem? An empirical investigation with a diverse Israeli sample.

Abstract

The current investigation aimed to test the relationship between religiousness and self-esteem. Religiousness was measured comprehensively by four indices (i.e., religious participation, positive religious coping, fundamentalism, optimistic afterlife beliefs). In addition, the study examined the key question of whether the relationships between the different indices of religiousness and self-esteem persist after controlling for the potential confounding variable dispositional optimism. The study utilized a cross-sectional design and a sample of Israeli adults (N = 451) from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds. The findings revealed weak positive zero-order correlations between all indices of religiousness and self-esteem. However, none of these indices remained predictive of self-esteem when they were entered into the regression model alongside dispositional optimism. This was true both for the sample as a whole, and for Muslim and Jewish individuals, as well as secular, traditional, and religious individuals, separately. Furthermore, dispositional optimism fully mediated the links between all religious indices and self-esteem. The findings suggest that, at least in the specific sociocultural context in which this research was conducted, religiousness does not add a unique variance in predicting self-esteem, and its link to self-esteem can be explained by nonreligious variables.

No Evidence for Transactional Effects Between Religiosity and Self-Esteem in a Secular Country

“…Contrary to some theory and several empirical studies that found positive associations between religiosity and selfesteem (e.g., Abu-Raiya et al, 2021;Krause & Van Tran, 1989;Steger & Frazier, 2005), we found no evidence for an association between religiosity and self-esteem at either the within-person or between-person level. This finding questions some major theories regarding the function of religiosity and strengthens perspectives that stress the power of religiosity as cultural dimension (Gebauer & Sedikides, Within each assessment wave, religiosity was assessed ;4 months prior to self-esteem.…”

“…Several studies have tested the associations between different social aspects of religiosity (i.e., service attendance) and self-esteem and most of them found evidence for a positive link between the two constructs, supporting the RAR perspective (e.g., Abu-Raiya et al, 2021; Hayward & Krause, 2014; Krause & Van Tran, 1989; Sherkat & Reed, 1992). Yet all of these studies relied on cross-sectional data, whereas the two studies that tested the propositions of the RAR perspective in longitudinal data found no evidence for an association between service attendance and subsequent increases in self-esteem (Kent et al, 2018; Krause, 2009).…”

The Mediating Effect of Dispositional Gratitude on the Relationship between Religious Struggles and Self-Esteem: Preliminary Results

“…In the present study, we consider self-esteem according to the third perspective, this is, as an output and a possible effect of religious experience. The association between religiosity and self-esteem is somewhat ambivalent or unclear (Markstrom 1999), showing sometimes positive (Smith et al 1979;Bahr and Martin 1983;Ciarrochi and Heaven 2012;Thompson et al 2012;Ghorbani et al 2013;Cheadle et al 2018;Rooney et al 2020;Abu-Raiya et al 2021;Kane et al 2021), negative (Watson et al 1985(Watson et al , 1995, or even no (James et al 2003;Ghaffari and Çiftçi 2010;Aydin et al 2010) correlations between both phenomena.…”