Abstract
This study reports preliminary findings on the hypothesis that worldview can predict cardiovascular and cortisol responses to social stress. Based on theory and previous findings, we assumed that worldview security would provide a basis for stress resilience. Accordingly, religious and atheist individuals were expected to show higher stress resilience than spiritual and agnostic participants. Likewise, dimensional measures of religiosity and atheism were hypothesized to predict decreased, and existential search—indicating worldview insecurity—was hypothesized to predict increased physiological stress responses. Subjects included 50 university students who completed online questionnaires and took part in a standardized social stress test (Trier Social Stress Test). Systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP/DBP), heart rate (HR), and salivary cortisol (SC) were assessed at baseline, immediately after stress testing, and during a forty-minute recovery period. Worldview comparisons revealed lower cardiovascular stress responses among religious than among atheist and spiritual participants and particularly high baseline SC among spiritual participants. Across the entire sample, existential search showed substantial positive correlations with SBP, HR, and SC stress parameters. The findings suggest that worldview security might partly explain the health benefits often associated with religion.
Highlights
Studies have repeatedly established positive links between religion, spirituality (R/S), and health
Based on the literature (e.g., Hill and Pargament 2008; Johnstone et al 2008; Koenig 2012; Koenig et al 2012; Vance et al 2008; Weber et al 2012), we expected a positive impact of religiosity and convinced atheism on stress regulation, while this was not expected for agnosticism, and assumed to be the contrary for spirituality (King et al 2013; Schnell 2012; Vittengl 2018)
The present study contributes to the literature on the mind-body connection by lending support to the assumption that facets of worldview may predict ways of handling acute social stress, as measured by physiological markers
Summary
Studies have repeatedly established positive links between religion, spirituality (R/S), and health. While some people call themselves spiritual as well as religious, others use the term spirituality to express a distance from religion It becomes an alternative worldview—or rather an umbrella term for many different worldviews (Schnell 2011, 2017; Utsch et al 2018; Westerink 2012). Links have been established between spirituality and a range of indicators of low mental health, such as depression, anxiety, addiction, and neuroticism (King et al 2013; Schnell 2012; Vittengl 2018). These findings underline the necessity to distinguish between religiosity and spirituality when researching correlates of worldview positions
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