Religious coping strategies and spiritual transcendence

Abstract

People use both positive and negative religious coping strategies, and do so in the context of how they perceive their relationship with God, which means that both require individuals to acquire some degree of self transcendence. This study attempted to show that self transcendence is incorporated in both positive and negative coping strategies. The sample consisted of 190 practising Anglicans and Catholics. They completed RCOPE from which two variables measuring positive coping and negative coping were then constructed, the Self Transcendence Scale (ST) the item content of which is largely positive and the Spiritual Transcendence Scale (STS) of the Temperament and Character Inventory, which acknowledges negative as well as positive experiences. They also completed a scale, God Cares, measuring a person's perception of God as caring. In a series of hierarchical regression analyses, all three variables, the perception of God as caring, and both the positive and negative coping variables predicted ST and all of its subscales except one. The positive coping variable largely predicted STS, the perception of God as caring variable less so and the negative coping variable not at all. The findings were interpreted as suggesting that both perceiving God as caring and using positive coping strategies limit the problematic feelings associated with negative coping strategies, allowing the self transcendence implicit in them to appear.