Relationship among five categories of spiritual practices and five forms of well‐being: An empirical examination

Abstract

AbstractThis study notes that the existing literature suggests an important role for spirituality and religion in enhancing well‐being, and it hypothesizes the relationships of five categories of spiritual practices – religious practices, spiritual practices, existentialistic practices, humanistic practices and gratitude/awe‐related practices – with five forms of well‐being – physical well‐being, emotional well‐being, social well‐being, psychological well‐being and spiritual well‐being. In particular, this study develops an overall hypothesis specifying that the spiritual practices will be positively associated with five forms of well‐being and also develops four differential relationship hypotheses specifying that certain specific type of spiritual practices will have stronger associations with particular forms of well‐being. The results supported the overall hypothesis as the five spiritual practice categories collectively accounted for a statistically significant variance of 12% in physical well‐being, 14% in emotional well‐being, 29% in psychological well‐being, 28% in social well‐being and 40% in spiritual well‐being. The study results also provided varying levels of support for each of the remaining four differential relationship hypotheses, specifying that certain specific types of spiritual practices will have stronger associations with particular well‐being forms. The study makes significant theoretical contributions, provides directions for future research and has important implications for practice.