Person:

Rosmarin, David

Despite a surge in psychological research on gratitude over the past several years, a number of important questions remain unanswered about this highly valued trait. It is largely unknown, for example, how gratitude is maintained in times of distress. This article supports and extends existing theory and research on the relevance of benefit detection (the perception of having received a gain rendered intentionally and voluntarily by another), by testing a model in which religious involvement in general, and religious coping in particular, can help sustain gratitude in the face of negative emotions. Across 2 studies—1 in a community/college student sample (n 404) and another among individuals seeking psychological treatment (n 122)—we found initial support for our model. Implications for further research on gratitude and other areas of positive psychology are discussed.

Although spirituality and religion play a role in the lives of many North Americans, the relationship of these variables to symptoms of affective disorders has not been rigorously studied. The authors, therefore, evaluated the extent to which religious factors predicted symptoms of distress in a large community sample of 354 individuals (120 Christian and 234 Jewish). Results indicated that religious denomination was a poor predictor of distress. However, general religiousness (e.g. importance of religion), religious practices (e.g. frequency of prayer), and positive religious core beliefs predicted lower levels of worry, trait anxiety, and depressive symptoms, whereas negative religious core beliefs predicted increased symptoms. These variables accounted for a small but significant portion of the variance in reported symptoms after controlling for covariates. These findings are taken to indicate that religion is an important factor to consider when evaluating and treating distress in religious individuals. Implications for clinical practice of empirically supported treatments with religious individuals are explored.