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Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

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Religious Coping, Stress, and Depressive Symptoms AmongAdolescents: A Prospective Study

Thomas P. Carpenter, Tyler Laney, and Amy MezulisSeattle Pacific University

This study examined prospective associations between religious coping, stress, anddepressive symptoms in a community sample of 111 adolescents (80 female). Wehypothesized that religious coping would moderate the relationship between stress anddepressive symptoms, with negative religious coping exacerbating the effects of stresson depressive symptoms and positive religious coping buffering the effects of stress ondepressive symptoms. We further expected that the moderating effects of religiouscoping on outcomes would be strongest for youth with high personal religious com-mitment. Study hypotheses were tested in a prospective 12-week study. Youth self-reported their use of positive and negative religious coping strategies and personalreligious commitment at baseline and then reported stressors and depressive symptomsweekly for eight weeks with an additional assessment at 12 weeks. Data were analyzedusing hierarchical linear modeling. Results indicated that, as expected, negative reli-gious coping significantly moderated the effects of stress on depressive symptomsacross the 12-week study, with depressive symptoms being highest among youth withhigh stress exposure and high negative religious coping. The exacerbating effects ofnegative religious coping on the stress-depression relationship were strongest for youthwith high personal religious commitment. Positive religious coping only marginallybuffered the effects of stress on depressive symptoms. The results confirm and extendprevious findings on the association between religious coping strategies and stress inpredicting depressive symptoms.

Keywords: religious coping, depression, adolescence, stress

Although depression can occur throughoutthe life span, it is a problem of particularsignificance in adolescence. Incidence of depres-sion during adolescence rises dramaticallywhereas fewer than 6% of children experienced ep re ss io n, n ea rl y 2 0% o f y ou th w il lexperience a depressive episode by age 18(Hankin et al., 1998). Subclinical depressivesymptoms also increase in adolescence, with upto 65% of youth reporting moderate to severesymptoms that place them at risk for academicproblems, interpersonal difficulties, and futuredepressive disorders (Fergusson & Woodward,2002; Hammen & Compas, 1994; Rutter, Kim-

Cohen, & Maughan, 2006). The transition toadolescence involves an increase in the fre-quency of stressors, and contemporary theoriesof depression suggest that individual differ-ences in the frequency, type, and emotionalimpact of stressful events may be implicated inthe increase in depressive symptoms during thisdevelopmental period (Hyde, Mezulis, &Abramson, 2008). According to these theories,many factors that influence the development ofdepression do so by moderating the stress-depression relationship, minimizing or exacer-bating the depressogenic effects of stress (Hyde,Mezulis, & Abramson, 2008).

One potential moderator of the stress-depression relationship is religiosity, which haslong been implicated as a protective factor (andoccasionally a risk factor) in mental health re-search. The body of research investigating theimpact of religiosity on mental health has growntremendously in recent years (Ano & Vascon-celles, 2005; Hackney & Sanders, 2003; Harri-son, Koenig, Hays, Eme-Akwari, & Pargament,

Thomas P. Carpenter, Tyler Laney, and Amy Mezulis,Department of Clinical Psychology, Seattle PacificUniversity.

Correspondence concerning this article should be ad-dressed to Amy Mezulis, Department of Clinical Psychol-ogy, 3307 3rd Ave West, Suite 107, Seattle Pacific Univer-sity, Seattle, WA 98119. E-mail: [email protected]

Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 2011 American Psychological Association2011, Vol. , No. , 000000 1941-1022/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0023155

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2001). Much recent attention has centeredaround religious coping strategies. Religiouscoping is defined as a broad variety of spiritu-ally and religiously based cognitive, behavioral,

and interpersonal responses to stressors (Parga-ment, Smith, Koenig, & Perez, 1998). Severalstudies have concluded that some religious cop-ing responses are protective and positively im-pact mental health, while others are maladaptiveand negatively impact mental health (Ano &Vasconcelles, 2005; Harrison et al., 2001; Par-gament, Koenig, & Perez, 2000; Pargament etal., 1998). Pargament et al. (1998) labeled theseas positive and negative religious coping, re-spectively. Since then, consistent relationshipshave been found between mental health andmeasures of positive and negative religious cop-ing (Ano & Vasconcelles, 2005; Harrison et al.,2001), including recent studies on depression(e.g., Bjorck & Thurman, 2007; Carleton, Es-parza, Thaxter, & Grant, 2008). However, nostudies have directly examined positive andnegative religious coping as moderators of thestress-depression relationship in a prospectivestudy. In addition, few studies have examinedreligious coping and depression among adoles-cents, despite the salience of this developmental

period for understanding the etiology of depres-sion. The present study seeks to address theselimitations in the extant literature by examiningwhether positive and negative religious copingmoderate the effects of stress on depressivesymptoms in 12-week prospective study amongadolescents.

Stress and Depression

It has been well established that stressful life

events are associated with both the onset ofdepressive episodes (e.g., Kendler, Karkowski,& Prescott, 1999) and increases in depressivesymptoms in adolescence (Grant et al., 2003;Grant, Compas, Thurm, McMahon, & Gipson,2004; Tram & Cole, 2000). First episodes ofdepression, which are particularly relevant tothe emergence of depression in adolescence, areespecially likely to be triggered by negative lifeevents (Monroe & Harkness, 2005). Recentcomprehensive vulnerability-stress models ofdepression have explained individual differ-

ences in depressive symptoms by highlightingthe importance of affective, cognitive, and bio-logical factors that leave individuals more or

less able to cope with life stressors and moder-ate the stress-depression relationship (Hankin &Abramson, 2001; Hyde, Mezulis, & Abramson,2008). According to the vulnerability-stress

model, some individuals use morepositive and effective coping skills that reducerisk for depression after exposure to stressfulevents, while others engage in cognitive orbehavioral strategies that exacerbate theharmful effects of stress and increase depres-sive symptoms.

Positive and Negative Religious Coping

The positive/negative religious coping frame-work, formally introduced by Pargament andcolleagues (1998), identifies a variety of spe-cific spiritually based cognitive, behavioral, andinterpersonal responses to stressors and catego-rizes them as either positive or negative formental health. Positive religious coping strate-gies include benevolent religious reappraisals ofstressors, seeking spiritual connection, andseeking spiritual support from others; these arebelieved to be effective coping responses thatprotect individuals from the depressogenic ef-fects of stress. Negative religious coping strat-

egies include punishing-God reappraisals,expressing spiritual discontent, demonic reap-praisals, and reappraisals of Gods power; theseare believed to be maladaptive responses thatexacerbate the depressogenic effects of stres-sors. Although these strategies resemble nonre-ligious responses in many ways (e.g., cognitivereframing, social support, etc.), studies havefound religious coping to contribute uniquevariance to the prediction of mental health (Par-gament, 1997; Tix & Frazier, 1998) such that it

cannot be reduced to nonreligious forms ofcoping (Pargament, Koenig, & Perez, 2000, p.710).

Positive and negative religious copingstrategies have been widely used over the pastdecade to predict a variety of mental healthoutcomes (see Ano & Vasconcelles, 2005 fora review and meta-analysis). In a meta-analysis of 49 studies, Ano and Vasconcelles(2005) concluded that both positive and neg-ative religious coping were significantly re-lated to psychological adjustment. Positive

religious coping was significantly associatedwith both increased positive adjustment anddecreased negative adjustment. Negative reli-

2 CARPENTER, LANEY, AND MEZULIS

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gious coping was significantly associatedwith increased negative adjustment only. Anumber of studies have focused on the rela-tionship between religious coping and depres-

sive symptoms (Bjorck & Thurman, 2007;Fitchett, Rybarczyk, DeMarco, & Nicholas,1999; Hebert, Zdaniuk, Schulz, & Scheier,2009; Maltby & Day, 2003; Nooney & Woo-drum, 2002; Pargament et al., 1998; Sherman,Plante, Simonton, Latif, & Anaissie, 2009;Tarakeshwar & Pargament, 2001). In one re-cent cross-sectional study of ProtestantChurch members, for example, Bjorck andThurman (2007) found that negative religiouscoping significantly predicted increased de-pressive symptoms, while positive religiouscoping interacted with stress to predict de-creased depressive symptoms.

Despite these consistent findings, contempo-rary studies of positive and negative religiouscoping may be limited by reliance on cross-sectional designs. Many researchers have notedthe wide prevalence of cross-sectional studydesigns and the need for more prospective stud-ies to clarify causational and interpretationalambiguities (Ano & Vasconcelles, 2005; Harri-son et al., 2001; Hebert et al., 2009; Pargament

et al., 1998; Sherman et al., 2009).The small body of existing prospective stud-

ies has yielded relatively consistent support forthe hypothesis that negative religious coping isassociated with depression, but mixed findingregarding the relationships between positive re-ligious coping and depression. One prospectivestudy by Tix and Frazier (1998) using generalreligious coping measures did find a positiveassociation between religious coping and posi-tive psychological adjustment, but subsequent

prospective studies have failed to replicate thesefindings. In one recent prospective study of fe-male cancer patients, Hebert et al. (2009) foundno association between positive religious cop-ing and measures of psychological well-being.They did find that negative religious coping waspositively associated with depressive symp-toms, worse mental health, and lower life satis-faction. Another recent prospective study ofmedical transplant patients (Sherman et al.,2009) yielded similar results. This study foundthat negative religious coping was associated

with increased depressive symptoms, posttrans-plant anxiety, lower measures of well-being,and transplant concerns, while positive religious

coping was unrelated to these variables. Thesefindings are further consistent with those foundby Fitchett et al. (1999), who prospectivelystudied positive and negative religious coping

in medical rehabilitation patients and foundsupport only for the harmful effects of negativereligious coping.

The discrepancy between the findings ofthese prospective studies and the findings ofmany cross-sectional studies underscores theneed for more prospective examinations of re-ligious coping. The bulk of these studies havealso been done among medical patients under-going acute or chronic health stress. Given thatsuch individuals may adjust their coping styles

toward more negative strategies (Bjorck &Thurman, 2007), with hospital patients showingdifferent patterns of religious coping than non-hospital samples (Koenig, Pargament, &Nielsen, 1998), there is a need for studies ofreligious coping, stress, and depression amongnonmedical samples.

Moderation by Religious Commitment

The extent to which religious coping may

moderate the stress-depression relationship mayitself be moderated by other factors, includingthe religious commitment of the individual. In-dividuals who are high in personal religiouscommitment, as evidenced by engagement inreligious activities such as participation in reli-gious services, personal use of prayer, and/orwho indicate that their religious faith is of im-portance to them, may be particularly likely tobe influenced by their religious coping style. Anumber of studies have found that global indi-ces of religiosity (e.g., prayer, church atten-dance, seeing oneself as religious, strength ofreligious identification, personal meaningful-ness of religion) are related to depressive symp-toms among religious adolescents and adults(Eliassen, Taylor, & Lloyd, 2005; Schnittker,2001; Wright, Frost, & Wisecarver, 1993).Eliassen, Taylor, & Lloyd (2005) found that acomposite measure of prayer, religious coping,and turning to God in response to stressorspredicted decreased depression in highly reli-gious individuals and increased depression in

less religious individuals. We hypothesized thatthe efficacy of religious coping may be moder-ated by religious commitment.

3RELIGIOUS COPING WITH DEPRESSION

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The Current Study

In the present study, we examined the impactof positive and negative religious coping on the

stress-depression relationship in an adolescentsample. It is hypothesized that positive strate-gies serve to buffer the effects of stressors,while negative strategies exacerbate its harmfuleffects (Bjorck & Thurman, 2007; Pargament etal., 1998). In the context of a vulnerability-stress model of depression, we would thereforeexpect positive and negative religious coping toimpact depression by moderating the stress-depression relationship. We expected that neg-ative religious coping would moderate thestress-depression relationship by exacerbatingthe depressogenic effects of stress. We alsoexpected positive religious coping to moderatethe stress-depression relationship by bufferingagainst the depressogenic effects of stress. Wefurther examined whether either of these poten-tial relationships may themselves be moderatedby religious commitment.

Method

Participants

Participants were 111 (80 female) adoles-cents recruited from 9th through 12th gradeclassrooms in the Pacific Northwest. Partici-pants were attending one of three private reli-giously affiliated high schools: two Catholicschools and one Protestant school. Participantsranged in age from 14.1 to 19.3 years, with amean age of 16.4 years (SD 1.33). Approxi-mately 75% identified as Caucasian, 16% asAsian, 6% as African American, and 3% did notidentify a race. Our samples religious affilia-tion was 50.9% Catholic, 33% Protestant, 0.9%Jewish, and 0.9% Hindu. 14.3% reported noreligious affiliation.

Procedure

Participants were recruited at school via in-class presentations. An information packet andparent consent form was sent home with inter-ested participants. Parents and participants pro-vided written consent. Participants completed a

baseline set of questionnaires that includedmeasures of positive and negative religious cop-ing, participation in religious activities, overall

religiosity, and depressive symptoms. Eachweek for eight consecutive weeks, participantsthen completed a weekly questionnaire in whichthey reported on stressors and depressive

symptoms. Four weeks after the last weeklyquestionnaire, participants completed a finalquestionnaire assessing stressors and depressivesymptoms. All participants completed the initialquestionnaire and at least one weekly question-naire; the mean number of weekly question-naires completed was 7.4 of a possible 9. Ques-tionnaires were completed at school duringsessions held after class and during lunch. Par-ticipants received $5 for completing the initialquestionnaire and a small gift (valued at $3 orless) for each weekly questionnaire.

Measures

Religious coping. Positive and negative re-ligious coping were measured at baseline usingthe Brief RCOPE (Pargament et al., 1998), whichconsists of 14 items describing positive and neg-ative religious coping responses. Participants wereasked to indicate how typically they use the cop-ing response when faced with stressful eventsusing a 15 Likert scale (1 not at all, 5 a

great deal). The positive subscale consists ofseven items reflecting seven coping strategies,such as benevolent religious reappraisals, collab-orative religious coping, and seeking spiritual sup-port. A sample positive item is Tried to see howGod might be trying to strengthen me in thissituation. The other seven items assess five neg-ative religious coping strategies, such as spiritualdiscontent, punishing God reappraisal, and de-monic reappraisal. A sample negative item isWondered whether my church has abandoned

me. Responses were averaged to create compos-ite scores for positive and negative religious cop-ing. Internal consistencies were high for positivereligious coping ( .93) and moderate for neg-ative religious coping ( .77).

Depressive symptoms. Depressive symp-toms were measured at baseline, weekly, and atthe 12-week follow-up with the short form ofthe Childrens Depression Inventory (CDI; Ko-vacs, 1985). The full CDI is a 27-item self-report inventory, which inquires about thepresence of depressive symptoms within the

past two weeks. Each item contains three state-ments; participants were asked to select thestatement that best described them in the previ-


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ous two weeks. The CDI was designed for usewith youth between the ages of 8 and 17. Totalscores on the CDI can range from 0 to 54, withhigher scores indicating more severe depressive

symptoms. The CDI has repeatedly demonstratedexcellent internal consistency (alpha reliabilityranges from .80 to .87), testretest reliability, andpredictive and construct validity, especially incommunity samples (Blumberg & Izard, 1986;Kovacs, 1981, 1985). The CDI-S was developedas a shorter, 10-item assessment of depression andhas been found to be comparable with the full CDI(Kovacs, 1992). Resulting scores fall between 0and 20 and in nonclinical populations have had aninternal consistency of .74 to .77 (Smucker, Craig-head, Craighead, & Green, 1986). Internal consis-tencies of the CDI-S ranged from .72 to .86 in ourstudy.

Stressful life events. Stressful life eventswere measured weekly using a shortened ver-sion of the Adolescent Perceived Events Scale(APES; Compas, Davis, Forsythe, & Wagner,1987). Participants completed 59 items repre-senting both major and daily life events, suchas: Doing poorly on an exam or paper; Fightwith a friend; and Problems with familymember. Participants indicated for each event

whether it had occurred in the past week. Thenumber of stressors reported each week wasthen totaled for each participant.

Religious commitment. Religious com-mitment was indexed by three constructs. First,participants completed one item assessing howfrequently they participated in voluntary reli-gious activities outside of school (1 Morethan once per week, 6 Never). We specifiedout-of-school religious activities given thatmost study participants were required to attend

school religious activities; thus, out-of-schoolactivities were expected to be a more reliableindicator of personal religious commitment.Second, they indicated how often they took partin private religious activities such as prayer ormeditation (1 More than once per day, 6

Never). These items were reverse-scored so thathigher scores indicate more religious commit-ment. Third, participants completed two itemsindicating the overall degree of the importanceof their religious faith. They indicated how re-ligious they considered themselves to be using a

nine-point Likert scale (1 Not at all religious,9 Very religious) and how important religionwas to them (1 Not at all important, 9 Very

important). These two items were averaged toproduce a composite score of overall religiousimportance, with higher scores indicating moreself-identified religious importance.

Results

Data Analytic Plan

To analyze the multiwave repeated-measuresdata and potential moderators, we used hierar-chical linear modeling (HLM). Advantages ofthis technique include the ability to test multi-ple-moderator models and deal with missingdata (for a full review of this technique, pleasesee Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992). The analysis ofmultiple levels of data in multilevel modeling isaccomplished by constructing Level 1 andLevel 2 equations. At Level 1, a regression equa-tion is constructed for each participant that modelsvariation in the repeated measure (here, depressivesymptoms) as a function of time (from baselinethrough week 12). Each equation includes param-eters to capture features of the individuals trajec-tory over time: an intercept that describes theexpected initial level on the variable (e.g., whentime 0) and aslopethat describes change in that

level over time. Additional time-varying predic-tors can also be included in the Level 1 equations.At Level 2, equations are specified that modelindividual differences in the Level 1 variables as afunction of Level 2 variables (here, positive andnegative religious coping). Thus, the Level 1equations capture individuals trajectories for thedependent variable (depressive symptoms) overtime as a function of time and other repeatedlymeasured predictors (stress); the Level 2 modelorganizes and explains the between-subjects dif-

ferences among these trajectories as a function ofmoderators (religious coping, e.g., as cross-levelinteractions). A significant advantage of multi-level modeling is that it can flexibly handle caseswith missing data. Such random-effects models donot require that every participant provide com-plete, nonmissing data. In the current analyses,time was entered uncentered so that the resultingintercept reflects the expected value of depressivesymptoms at baseline.

For our main analyses examining positiveand negative religious coping as moderators of

the stress-depression relationship, our depen-dent variable was depressive symptoms as-sessed at each of the assessment points. Stress


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was included in the Level 1 equations as atime-varying covariate to represent the maineffect of stress on depressive symptoms overtime; religious coping styles were entered in

Level 2 as potential moderators. This modelallowed us to examine whether religious copingmoderates the relationship between stress anddepressive symptoms over time. These equa-tions are shown here:

Level1: Depressionij 0j 1j(Time)

2j(Stress) e ij

Level2:0j 00 01(Religious Coping)r0j

1j 10 11Religious Coping r1j

2j 20 21Religious Coping r2j

Finally, we examined our religious commit-ment variables as potential moderators of thecoping style stress model. Again using mul-tilevel modeling, we examined time and stressas Level 1 predictor variables, with copingstyle, the additional moderator (e.g., voluntary

religious activities), and the coping modera-tor interaction as Level 2 moderators of Level 1predictors. Separate models were computed foreach hypothesized coping style (positive andnegative religious coping) and each moderator(voluntary religious activities; private religiousactivities; religious importance). For example,the final model for voluntary religious activitiesas a moderator of the negative religious cop-ing stress model was as follows:

Level1: Depressionij 0j 1j(Time)

2j(Stress) eij

Level2:0j 00

01Negative Religious Coping

02Religious Activities


Negative Religious Coping) r0j

1j 10 11Negative Religious Coping




2j 20

21Negative Religious Coping




This data analytic strategy allowed us to ex-amine whether religious coping moderates therelationship between stress and depressivesymptoms over time, and whether any of thepredictive relationships between stress, reli-gious coping, and the cross-level religious cop-ing stress interaction are further moderated

by religious commitment.

Main Effect of Stress on Depressive

Symptoms

Means, standard deviations, and correlationsamong study variables are reported in Table 1.

As expected, a main effect of stress on de-pressive symptoms was observed. Stress anddepressive symptoms covaried significantlyover time, such that participants reportinghigher amounts of stress across the study alsoreported more depressive symptoms (coeffi-cient .32,t 12.66,p .001). See Table 2.

Does Negative Religious Coping Moderate

the Stress-Depression Relationship?

As hypothesized, negative religious copingwas a significant moderator of the relationshipbetween stress and depression (coefficient .13, t 2.71, p .01). Youth reporting highuse of negative religious coping strategies re-

ported more depressive symptoms when facedwith stress than youth with less utilization ofnegative religious coping strategies.


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Does Positive Religious Coping Moderate

the Stress-Depression Relationship?

Positive religious coping was only margin-ally significant as a moderator of the stress-depression relationship (coefficient .06,t 1.73, p .08). This marginal negativerelationship indicates the relationship betweenstress and depression was marginally reducedfor youth reporting greater utilization of posi-tive religious coping strategies, suggesting atrend for positive religious coping to buffer thenegative effects of stress on depression.

Are Either of These Effects Moderated by

Religious Commitment?

As hypothesized, engagement in voluntaryreligious activities marginally moderated(coefficient .07, t 1.74, p .08) andengagement in personal religious practices sig-nificantly moderated (coefficient .09,t 3.18, p .002) the effect of negativereligious coping on the stress-depression rela-

tionship. In both cases, the moderation was inthe expected direction, such that the maladap-tive effect of negative religious coping on the

stress-depression relationship was strongest foryouth with high religious commitment. Con-trary to study hypotheses, overall religious im-portance did not additionally moderate theeffects of negative religious coping on thestress-depression relationship. Similarly, noneof the religious commitment variables moder-ated the effect of positive religious coping onthe stress-depression relationship. See Tables 3and 4.

Discussion

The purpose of this study was to examinewhether individual differences in the use ofreligious coping strategies would moderate thewell-established negative effects of stress ondepressive symptoms in a community sample ofadolescents. We expected negative religiouscoping to exacerbate the depressogenic effectsof stress over time and positive religious copingto buffer the depressogenic effects of stress over

time. Finally, we additionally examinedwhether the effects of religious coping on thestress-depression relationship may be moder-ated by ones expressed level of religiouscommitment.

The results of the present study support ourfirst hypothesis that negative religious copingmoderates the stress-depression relationship,exacerbating the effects of stress. As expected,we observed a main effect of stress on depres-sion over time. Participants levels of depres-sive symptoms during the field period were

directly related to the amount of life stressorsthey reported. As negative religious coping wasused, the strength of this stress-depression rela-

Table 1Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for Baseline Study Measures

Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5

1. Negative Religious Coping .54 .53

2. Positive Religious Coping 1.09 .85 .14

3. Religious Importance 5.15 2.25 .09 .71

4. Private Religious Activities 2.60 1.72 .05 .68 .69

5. Voluntary Religious Activities 3.86 1.19 .07 .52 .55 .48

6. Depressive Symptoms 3.14 3.25 .24 .08 .10 .06 .04

p .05.

Table 2Multi-Level Model Predicting Depressive Symptoms

as a Function of Stress and Religious Coping

Coefficient t p

Level 1

Stress .32 12.66 .000

Level 2

NRC .06 1.07 .286

PRC .06 .28 .782Cross-level interaction

NRC Stress .13 2.71 .007PRC Stress .06 1.73 .084

Note. NRC Negative Religious Coping; PRC Posi-tive Religious Coping.p .01. p .001.


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tionship increased significantly. This adds fur-ther evidence to the growing body of research

demonstrating the harmful effects of negativereligious coping (Ano & Vasconcelles, 2005).These findings also stand in agreement withseveral recent studies linking negative religiouscoping with depressive symptoms (e.g., Bjorck& Thurman, 2007), including recent prospec-tive studies of medical rehabilitation patients(Hebert et al., 2009; Sherman et al., 2009).However, the present study extends those find-ings by examining the pathways by which neg-ative religious coping affects mental health. Thepresent findings provide evidence that negative

religious coping functions as a vulnerability todepression by moderating the effects of lifestressors much as other cognitive vulnerabilities

do (Hyde, Mezulis, & Abramson, 2008). Wefound no main effect of negative religious cop-

ing on depressive symptoms; instead, negativereligious coping appeared to function entirely asa moderator.

Our second hypothesis, that positive religiouscoping would moderate this stress-depressionrelationship by buffering against the effects ofstress, received only marginal support. As pos-itive religious coping was used over time, thelink between stress and depression was not sig-nificantly lessened. However, the results didtrend in this direction, closely approaching butnot reaching significance. These findings are

marginally supportive of the stress-bufferinghypothesis, yet they fall short of the consistentfindings reported in many cross-sectional stud-

Table 3Multi-Level Models Predicting Depressive Symptoms as a Function of Stress, Negative Religious Coping,

and Religious Commitment

Coefficient t p

Model 1: Negative Religious Coping & Religious Importance

Level 1

Stress .35 3.73 .000

Level 2

Negative Religious Coping (NRC) .10 .60 .547Religious Importance .02 1.35 .181NRC Religious Importance .03 1.04 .301

Cross-level interaction

NRC Stress .01 .03 .974NRC Stress Religious Importance .02 .86 .388

Model 2: Negative Religious Coping & Voluntary Religious Practice

Level 1

Stress .04 .33 .739Level 2

Negative Religious Coping (NRC) .02 .15 .885Voluntary Religious Practice .03 .74 .463NRC Voluntary Religious Practice .02 .58 .561


NRC Stress .35 2.77 .006NRC Stress Voluntary Religious Practice .07 1.74 .081

Model 3: Negative Religious Coping & Private Religious Practice

Level 1

Stress .07 .58 .562Level 2

Negative Religious Coping (NRC) .04 .26 .792Private Religious Practice .01 .436 .663

NRC Private Religious Practice .00 .06 .952Cross-level interaction

NRC Stress .54 3.97 .000NRC Stress Private Religious Practice .91 3.18 .002

p .05. p .01. p .001.


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ies. In a recent similar study, Bjorck and Thur-man (2007) examined positive religious coping

as a stress buffer in the prediction of depressivesymptoms in 336 adult protestant church mem-bers. Using the same religious coping measureas the present study, they cross-sectionally ex-amined relationships between positive religiouscoping, negative life events, and depressivesymptoms. Unlike the present study, they founda strong main effect of positive religious copingon depression scores. In addition, they found asignificant interaction between negative lifeevents and positive religious coping such thatthe impact of negative life events on depression

appeared to be reduced for those who reportedhigh levels of positive religious coping. Otherstudies have reported similar findings. In their

review and meta-analysis, Ano and Vascon-celles (2005) examined 29 cross-sectional stud-

ies that reported relationships between positivereligious coping and negative psychological ad-justment. Across these studies, many of whichmeasured depressive symptoms, they found amoderate and significant cumulative effect ofpositive religious coping on negative psycho-logical adjustment.

While the present findings do not contradictthese studies, they provide only marginal pro-spective evidence for benefits of positive reli-gious coping. As noted earlier, other prospec-tive studies have had similar results. Hebert et

al. (2009); Sherman et al. (2009), and Fitchett etal. (1999) all failed to find significant effects ofpositive religious coping on mental health out-

Table 4Multi-Level Models Predicting Depressive Symptoms as a Function of Stress, Positive Religious Coping,

and Religious Commitment

Coefficient t p

Model 1: Positive Religious Coping & Religious Importance

Level 1

Stress .30 3.351 .001

Level 2

Positive Religious Coping (PRC) .06 .46 .645

Religious Importance .01 .62 .536PRC Religious Importance .00 .29 .771


PRC Stress .02 .13 .895PRC Stress Religious Importance .01 .62 .537

Model 2: Positive Religious Coping & Voluntary Religious Practice

Level 1

Stress .34 2.54 .012

Level 2

Positive Religious Coping (PRC) .17 2.33 .020Voluntary Religious Practice .06 2.15 .032PRC Voluntary Religious Practice .05 2.12 .034


PRC Stress .04 .37 .709PRC Stress Voluntary Religious Practice .04 1.07 .284

Model 3: Positive Religious Coping & Private Religious Practice

Level 1

Stress .50 2.74 .007

Level 2

Positive Religious Coping (PRC) .01 .04 .970Private Religious Practice .01 .17 .865

PRC Private Religious Practice .00 .10 .921Cross-level interaction

PRC Stress .05 .52 .603PRC Stress Private Religious Practice .01 .59 .558

p .05. p .01. p .001.


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comes. Tix and Frazier (1998) found generalmeasures of religious coping associated withincreased positive adjustment. These studies allexamined potential main effects of religious

coping on mental health, not interactions. Ourmarginal finding may represent some weakmoderating benefits of positive religious copingon the stress-depression relationship. It is pos-sible that with a larger sample size we wouldhave found a significant relationship; however,any effect would have to have been small as thelarge amount of data collected in the presentstudy allowed for relatively high-power analy-ses. It is also possible that the present marginalfinding would disappear with a larger samplesize. This is a question that remains open forfuture investigation.

We also found support for our third hypoth-esis, that overall religious commitment vari-ables might themselves moderate the effects ofreligious coping. The effect of negative reli-gious coping on the stress-depression relation-ship increased significantly as youth spent timein voluntary religious practices such as prayerand meditation; a smaller marginal effect wasobserved for voluntary religious activities suchas church attendance outside of school. That

this effect was not observed for overall religiousimportance suggests that the efficacy of nega-tive religious coping may rely more on theamount of time spent having negative copingexperiences than the strength of individual reli-gious commitment. It is also possible that self-report biases may have made the overall mea-sures of religious commitment less valid. Nostudies to date have examined this question. Anumber of existing studies have examined howglobal religiosity variables impact depression

(Eliassen, Taylor, & Lloyd, 2005; Schnittker,2001; Wright, Frost, & Wisecarver, 1993);however, little distinction has been made thusfar between religious practice and religiouscommitment in this literature.

The marginal moderating effect of positivereligious coping was not moderated by anyglobal religiosity variables, contrary to hypoth-eses. As noted previously, the present findingsprovided only marginal evidence that positivereligious coping moderates the stress-depres-sion relationship, which may explain why indi-

ces of religious commitment showed no effectin the present sample. If there is indeed a causallink between decreased depressive symptoms

and global religiosity variables such as prayer,church attendance, and personal commitment,as has been postulated in previous research(Eliassen, Taylor, & Lloyd, 2005; Maddi, Brow,

Khoshaba, & Vaitkus, 2006; Ross, 1990;Schnittker, 2001; Wright, Frost, & Wisecarver,1993), it does not appear to be attributable toa moderating effect on the stress-depressionrelationship.

The present study was limited in its use of anexclusively adolescent sample. While this pop-ulation is at high risk for depression and depres-sive symptoms, it is unknown whether theyexpress religious coping the same as adults.While we believe it was a benefit to the existingliterature to examine the effects of positive andnegative religious coping prospectively in anonmedical sample, this population may haveits own challenges. The present study was alsolimited by a reliance on self-report measures.Future studies may wish to examine these vari-ables using a broader array of measurementtools.

Religious coping has been found repeatedlyto explain both positive and negative mentalhealth outcomes, including depression in cross-sectional research. The present study found ev-

idence strongly supportive of the findings ofexisting research on negative religious copingyet, as with other prospective studies, has failedto find strong evidence for the hypothesizedrelationships between positive religious copingand depression. Why this is still remains un-clear. It is possible that positive religious copingscores may in part reflect a self-deceptive value-congruent bias, as has been suggested of otherreligiosity variables (e.g., Batson, Schoenrade,& Ventis, 1993; Barnes & Brown, 2010). As

most existing religious coping research hasbeen conducted on adults, another relevantquestion is whether religious coping functionsin adolescents mirror those of adults. An inter-esting comparison would be to conduct thesame study with a community adult samplesimilarly to Bjorck and Thurman (2007), whodid find strong cross-sectional evidence in sup-port of positive religious coping using similarmeasures. The present research, while provid-ing new insights into the function and nature ofreligious coping, raises further questions for

future prospective research.Religiosity is turned to in times of stress, a

fact that holds true for adolescents during the


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developmental period most sensitive to stressand the development of depression. The presentfindings add to the growing body of evidencethat the ways adolescents turn to faith in re-

sponse to stress can dramatically impact mentalhealth, for better or worse. Far from represent-ing a blanket, active force over the mentalhealth of youth, it seems religiosity influencesthe mental health of youth by adding toanddetracting fromtheir existing attempts to copewith stress.

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Received September 21, 2010Revision received December 20, 2010

Accepted January 4, 2011


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