Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between feelings of God-mediated control and optimism in Conservative Protestants and individuals affiliated with all other denominations. God-mediated control is defined as the belief that problems in life can be overcome and important goals can be reached by working together with God. Findings from a nationwide survey of older people reveal that Conservative Protestants are more optimistic than people who affiliate with other denominations. Moreover, the results indicate that differences in optimism across the two groups can be explained to a significant extent by a stronger relationship between God-mediated control and optimism in the Conservative Protestant group.
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Notes
Although some researchers make a distinction between hope and optimism, we believe they largely assess the same underlying construct. This view is consistent with the observations of Peterson and Seligman (2004), who note that the overlap between the two is “considerable” and that despite differences in the way these constructs are measured, the correlates of these constructs are “strikingly similar” (p. 570).
A total of 48 individuals indicated that they had no religious preference at the baseline survey. However, 43 people in this group reported that they had practiced Christianity when they were living with a parent or guardian. The remaining five study participants said they have never participated in any faith tradition at any point in their lifetimes. This raises the issue of whether these 48 people should be included in the analyses or whether they should be eliminated. We decided to leave them in because further analyses (not shown here) revealed that even though they do not attend church, they nevertheless endorse God-mediated control beliefs to varying degrees. This is consistent with the views of Tamney et al. (1989), who report that a significant number of the “nones” nevertheless continue to endorse a range of religious beliefs.
This analysis was performed by pooling the data from the two groups and testing for a statistical interaction effect between group membership (i.e., Conservative Protestant vs. all others) and God-mediated control on optimism. The significance level in the text (.010) is associated with the multiplicative term.
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Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (RO1 AG026259; Neal Krause, PI) and a grant from the John Templeton Foundation (Neal Krause, PI).
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Krause, N., Hayward, R.D. God-Mediated Control and Optimism: Exploring Variations by Denominational Affiliation. Rev Relig Res 56, 275–290 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-013-0133-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-013-0133-2