Depressive symptoms and religious orientation: examining the relationship between religiosity and depression within the context of other correlates of depression

The role of cognitive, personality and social variables to explain the rela tionship between religious orientation and aspects of psychological well-be ing is often speculated at a theoretical level, but tends not to be explore d empirically. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between religious orientation and depressive symptoms among cognitive, per sonality and social correlates of depression. A total of 360 (172 males, 18 8 females) English University students completed measures of depressive sym ptoms, religious orientation, anxiety, neuroticism, coping style, attributi on style and self-esteem. Among men and women, depressive symptoms are sign ificantly associated with higher scores on the measures of extrinsic-social and extrinsic personal religious orientation, neuroticism, attribution sty le, wish and avoidance coping; and lower scores on the measures of intrinsi c religious orientation, optimism, self-esteem and problem-focussed and sup port seeking coping. A multiple regression shows that, among men, all three religious orientations, and among women, two of the three religious orient ations (intrinsic, extrinsic-social), represent separate dimensions that ar e important in accounting for unique variance in depression within the cont ext of a number of cognitive, social and personality explanations of depres sion. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.