Centrality of Religiosity and Sense of Coherence: a Cross-sectional Study with Polish Young, Middle and Late Adults

Abstract

The relationship between religiosity and mental health is a relatively common topic in psychology of religion. Many studies have been performed examining this topic and the results have reported both positive and neutral and even negative relationships between religious commitment and mental health. The ambiguous findings may be due to the fact that religion has a multifaceted nature and different aspects of religiosity are differentially related to mental health. Depending on which definitions of religiosity researchers used, evidence could be supporting a positive or negative relationship between religiosity and mental health and supporting the position that there is no relationship.

The present study aims to examine interactions of five dimensions of religiosity (Intellect, Ideology, Private Practice, Religious Experience, Public Practice) with sense of coherence in Polish adults' sample, separately in women and men in early, middle and late adulthood. Six hundred thirty-six Polish Catholics, 332 women and 304 men, aged between 18 and 79 participated in the research. We applied the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS) by S. Huber and the Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC-29) by A. Antonovsky. The results suggest that the salutogenic function of religiosity is related to age and gender. We noted positive relationships between religiosity and SOC in middle-aged men and in female young and late groups. Implications for intervention are discussed.