Kept in His Care: The Role of Perceived Divine Control in Positive Reappraisal Coping
College of Liberal and Fine Arts, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Religions 2017, 8(8), 133; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8080133
Received: 10 June 2017
/
Revised: 22 July 2017
/
Accepted: 24 July 2017
/
Published: 26 July 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Religion and Mental Health Outcomes)
A formidable body of literature suggests that numerous dimensions of religious involvement can facilitate productive coping. One common assumption in this field is that religious worldviews provide overarching frameworks of meaning by which to positively reinterpret stressors. The current study explicitly tests this assumption by examining whether perceived divine control—i.e., the notion that God controls the course and direction of one’s life—buffers the adverse effects of recent traumatic life events on one’s capacity for positive reappraisal coping. We analyze cross-sectional survey data from Vanderbilt University’s Nashville Stress and Health Study (2011–2014), a probability sample of non-Hispanic black and white adults aged 22 to 69 living in Davidson County, Tennessee (n = 1252). Findings from multivariate regression models confirm: (1) there was an inverse association between past-year traumatic life events and positive reappraisals; but (2) perceived divine control significantly attenuated this inverse association. Substantively, our findings suggest that people who believe God controls their life outcomes are better suited for positively reinterpreting traumatic experiences. Implications, limitations, and avenues for future research are discussed.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
trauma; major life events; positive reappraisals; coping; resilience; stress process; religious involvement; perceived divine control
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
MDPI and ACS Style
DeAngelis, R.T.; Ellison, C.G. Kept in His Care: The Role of Perceived Divine Control in Positive Reappraisal Coping. Religions 2017, 8, 133. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8080133
AMA Style
DeAngelis RT, Ellison CG. Kept in His Care: The Role of Perceived Divine Control in Positive Reappraisal Coping. Religions. 2017; 8(8):133. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8080133
Chicago/Turabian StyleDeAngelis, Reed T., and Christopher G. Ellison. 2017. "Kept in His Care: The Role of Perceived Divine Control in Positive Reappraisal Coping" Religions 8, no. 8: 133. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8080133
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
