THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF ON SOLDIERS WELL-BEING AND FAMILY BONDING DURING MILITARY DEPLOYMENT

Abstract

Military deployments are events and stressors that begin when the soldiers are deployed and end when they return home and reintegrate back into their families and communities. Religious belief accepts the basic social-value system's moral legitimacy, which serves as a crucial component of strong family bonds. Family bonding can be defined as a feeling of closeness and caring toward one's parents, which is manifested in the family through ostensible supervision, communication, involvement, and cooperative activities. This study was conducted using 384 usable data gathered from soldiers who served in various ships of the Royal Malaysian Navy. Analyzing the validity and reliability of the instrument and hence testing the research hypotheses, used SmartPLS version 3.2.8 to construct structural equation modeling. The results of path model analysis revealed two important findings: firstly, the soldier well-being (family supports', medium of communication, and personal financial) significantly correlated with religious belief; secondly, the religious belief complementary mediated the relationship between soldier well-being and family bonding. Statistically, this finding suggests that properly managing soldiers' religious beliefs act as an essential mediator between well-being aspects such as family support, medium of communication, personal finance, and family bonding. This study contributes to understanding how soldier well-being factors can strengthen family bonding among soldiers by soldier’s religious belief as a mediator in this relationship. These findings prove that the importance of a soldier’s religious belief is instilled into every soldier. Discussion, ramifications, and a conclusion are also included.