Religious orientation, religious involvement, and religious coping predict university students’ thinking styles

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study explores how religious orientation, religious involvement, and religious coping are related to thinking styles among university students in mainland China. The Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised II (TSI-R2), Age Universal Intrinsic/Extrinsic Scale-12, the religious involvement scale, and the brief RCOPE were administered to 933 students. Results showed these three inventories are reliable among Chinese students, and that religiousness significantly positively predicted Type I thinking styles (i.e. more creativity-generating, less structured, and cognitively more complex). This study implicated that university students’ religious orientation, religious involvement, and religious coping deserve attention; professional religious personnel could promote students’ Type I thinking styles by increasing their religiousness within the legal places of worship; religious university students may improve their Type I thinking styles through more actively participate in off campus religious activities. The limitations and contributions of this research are also discussed.