Anxiety Predicts Increases in Struggles with Religious/Spiritual Doubt Over Two Weeks, One Month, and One Year

Struggles with religious/spiritual (r/s) doubt occur when uncertainty, questions, and hesitancy about aspects of r/s beliefs and experiences become a source of conflict. Cross-sectional research suggests that doubt-related struggles correlate with anxiety, yet no studies have investigated the tempor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The international journal for the psychology of religion
Authors: Wilt, Joshua A. (Author) ; Exline, Julie J. (Author) ; Grubbs, Joshua B. (Author) ; Lindberg, Matthew J. (Author) ; Pargament, Kenneth I. 1950- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group [2017]
In: The international journal for the psychology of religion
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B USA / Religiosity / Spirituality / Insecurity / Anxiety / Doubt
RelBib Classification:AE Psychology of religion
AG Religious life; material religion
KBQ North America
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Summary:Struggles with religious/spiritual (r/s) doubt occur when uncertainty, questions, and hesitancy about aspects of r/s beliefs and experiences become a source of conflict. Cross-sectional research suggests that doubt-related struggles correlate with anxiety, yet no studies have investigated the temporal patterning of the associations between these constructs. We employed three large samples (Ns = 268, 527, 292) to examine concurrent and prospective associations between struggles with r/s doubt and anxiety over three time frames: 2 weeks, 1 month, and 1 year. Analyses revealed that (a) each construct exhibited high cross-temporal stability; (b) there were moderate, positive concurrent associations between anxiety and doubt-related struggles; (c) anxiety predicted increases in doubt-related struggles over each time frame; and (d) there was mixed evidence regarding whether doubt-related struggles predicted changes in anxiety over time. The discussion focuses on how anxiety may begin to undermine confidence in one's r/s worldview, thus destabilizing one's r/s beliefs.
Item Description:In der Druckausgabe ist Volume 27, Numbers 1-4 in einem Heft erschienen
ISSN:1532-7582
Contains:Enthalten in: The international journal for the psychology of religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/10508619.2015.1098820