Paul J. Handal

Training and education in religion/spirituality within APA-accredited clinical psychology programs.

Future and current psychologists may find themselves baffled when confronted with the diversity of religious and spiritual backgrounds of their clients. Few psychologists have received professional training with regard toreligion and spirituality, despite the publics overwhelming interest. Currently, the topic of religion/spirituality is being covered to some degree in most accredited clinical programs. However, a distinct minority of these programs approach this education and training in a systematic fashion, whereas other programs report no educational or training opportunities in this area. Several recommendations are made for training programs, which are encouraged to increase their sensitivity to this topic, provide more opportunities for student growth in this area, and incorporate religious and spiritual issues into course work.

Personal Spirituality as a Moderator of the Relationship between Stressors and Subjective Well-Being:

The present study examined the impact that a personal, integrated spirituality has on well-being and its role in moderating the effects of stressors (both significant life events and hassles) on well-being among a sample of 120 undergraduates at a private religiously affiliated college. The hypotheses were as follows: First, stressors would have a negative impact on subjective well-being (SWB), which consists of satisfaction with life (SWL) and affective well-being (AWB); second, personal spirituality would positively predict SWB independently of stressors; and third, personal spirituality would moderate the relationship between stressors and SWB. Results showed that stressors predicted both dimensions of SWB and that personal spirituality significantly added to the prediction of SWL. Personal spirituality was also found to moderate the relationship between stressors and life satisfaction, accounting for a small yet significant portion of the variance. Personal spirituality is conceptualized as a useful resource among undergraduates for maintaining life satisfaction in the face of stressors. Questions are raised regarding the underlying mechanisms of the observed effects.

Academic Dishonesty at the Graduate Level

We investigated the definition, prevalence, perceived prevalence and severity of, as well as justifications for and expected responses to, academic dishonesty at the graduate level in a sample of 246 graduate students, 49 faculty, and 20 administrators. Between 2.5% and 55.1% of students self-reported engaging in academically dishonest behaviors, depending on the nature of the behavior. Students and faculty rated 40 examples of academically dishonest behaviors similarly in terms of severity, but faculty tended to underestimate the prevalence of academic dishonesty. Students and faculty also reported how they would idealistically and realistically expect themselves to respond to cheating situations. Students rated 21 behaviors in terms of their likeliness to increase or decrease academically dishonest behavior. Suggestions are given for developing a climate or culture of academic integrity to address academic dishonesty.

Definitions and Evaluation of Religion and Spirituality Items by Religious Professionals: A Pilot Study

In an effort to clarify the concepts of religion and spirituality religious professionals (Imams, Ministers, Priests, and Rabbis) defined the terms religion and spirituality and responded to whether the concepts religion and spirituality were different (i.e. non-overlapping), the same, or overlapping. Additionally, they rated each item from the five measures (purportedly to assess religion or spirituality) for the extent to which the items assess the construct of religion and/or spirituality. Content analysis of definitions revealed religion as objective, external, and ritual or organizational practices that one performs in a group setting and that guide one’s behavior; while spirituality was defined as internal, subjective, and divine experience or direct relationship with God. Primarily the concepts were viewed as overlapping. Analysis for item ratings revealed few within group differences and relatively few between group differences for ratings of item relevance to assess religion and spirituality. Factor analysis of item ratings revealed one factor named religion/spirituality.

Incidence of utilization of public mental health facilities as a function of short-term economic decline.

Analysis of the incidence of utilization of public mental health facilities during a 6-year time span yielded a significant relationship between lower occupational status and utilization of inpatient facilities. Further analysis revealed a significant relationship between education and utilization of outpatient facilities. Both of the findings held for 6 to 9 months after the beginning of economic decline.

The relationship between perfectionism and self-efficacy

Abstract The hypothesis that individuals scoring high vs low on measured perfectionism would differ significantly on a measure of self-efficacy was tested. The Burns Perfectionism Scale (BPS), the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS), and the Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (SES) were administered to 271 college students. It was found that while the BPS and MPS total scores were not able to discriminate high and low perfectionism scorers on self-efficacy, the three subscales of the MPS did. In this case, higher levels of Self-Oriented and Other-Oriented Perfectionism were associated with low self-efficacy, while higher levels of Socially-Prescribed Perfectionism were associated with high self-efficacy. The results not only have important implications for the conceptualization of perfectionism as an important factor in self-efficacy, but have important assessment implications, as well. Possible interpretations are offered.

RESEARCH: Stress, Religion, and Mental Health: Religious Coping in Mediating and Moderating Roles

Religious coping has been conceptualized as a mediator, accounting for the relationship between religiousness and mental health in times of stress, and as a moderator, altering the relationship between stressors and mental health (Pargament, 1997). Direct empirical investigations of these conceptual models, however, are few. This study examined 2 forms of religious coping in mediating and moderating roles. Collaborative religious coping, which is active, refers to sharing the responsibility for problem solving with God. The deferring approach is more passive and is characterized by giving the responsibility for problem solving to God. Using structural equation modeling, the authors found that collaborative religious coping mediated the relationships of religiousness to well-being and distress in a sample of undergraduates (N = 175). No mediation effect was found for deferring religious coping. Collaborative religious coping did not moderate the relationship between stressors and mental health variables, but an exacerbating moderation effect was found for deferring religious coping. The present study contributes to the literature for its methodological departures from previous studies of religious coping. Implications are discussed.

The Relationship Between Religion and Religious Coping: Religious Coping as a Moderator Between Religion and Adjustment

This study examined the relationship between and among religion, religious coping, and positive/negative psychological adjustment and investigated whether the four religious coping styles of Self-Directing, Deferring, Collaborative, and Turning to Religion would significantly moderate the relationship between religion and psychological adjustment. Each of the four religious coping measures were significant moderators between religion and positive and negative adjustment. However, the high self-directing and high religion group showed opposite results from the other three coping styles, in that they were the most maladjusted and least satisfied with life compared to the other three integration and religious coping groups. The participants high on religion and high deferring, high collaborative, and high turning to religion groups were less maladjusted and more satisfied than the other three groups in each of these religious coping styles.

Religion, Death Attitudes, and Belief in Afterlife in the Elderly: Untangling the Relationships

The study investigated the relationship between religion, belief in afterlife, and death attitudes (death anxiety and death acceptance) in an elderly population using instruments with sound psychometric properties. Survey data was collected from 71 elderly participants. Results indicated a strong correlation between belief in afterlife and intrinsic religion, and differential statistically significant relationships between intrinsic religion and both death anxiety and death acceptance depending on whether the effects of belief in afterlife were partialed out. Findings were discussed in light of the absence of clinically meaningful results and, the role that belief in afterlife appears to play in the literature investigating religion and death anxiety.

The relationship of abuse and witnessing violence on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory with black adolescents

A number of social and psychological factors present in most adolescent parents place them at high risk for abusive behavior toward their children. However, current child abuse potential measures do not include adolescent samples as part of the psychometric data base. Consequently, the purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to investigate whether a Black adolescent sample would perform differently than an adult nonabusing sample on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAP), and (2) to examine the relationship between history of abuse or witnessing violence to scores on the CAP. Results revealed that Black adolescents scored significantly higher than the adult normative sample on the CAP; consequently, cutoff scores need to be empirically established for adolescents. Additional analyses indicated that a history of abuse, as well as a history of witnessing violence, are associated with a high potential for abuse.