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Religious coping strategies and spiritualtranscendenceA. Philip Greenway a , Meagan Phelan a , Stasia Turnbull a & LisaC. Milne ba Monash University , Clayton, Victoria, Australiab Southern Health Care Network , Cranbourne, Victoria, AustraliaPublished online: 11 Jun 2007.

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Mental Health, Religion & CultureJuly 2007; 10(4): 325–333

Religious coping strategies and spiritualtranscendence

A. PHILIP GREENWAY1, MEAGAN PHELAN1,STASIA TURNBULL1, & LISA C. MILNE2

1Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia and 2Southern Health Care Network,

Cranbourne, Victoria, Australia

AbstractPeople use both positive and negative religious coping strategies, and do so in the contextof how they perceive their relationship with God, which means that both requireindividuals to acquire some degree of self transcendence. This study attempted to showthat self transcendence is incorporated in both positive and negative coping strategies.The sample consisted of 190 practising Anglicans and Catholics. They completedRCOPE from which two variables measuring positive coping and negative coping werethen constructed, the Self Transcendence Scale (ST) the item content of which is largelypositive and the Spiritual Transcendence Scale (STS) of the Temperament and CharacterInventory, which acknowledges negative as well as positive experiences. They alsocompleted a scale, God Cares, measuring a person’s perception of God as caring.In a series of hierarchical regression analyses, all three variables, the perception of Godas caring, and both the positive and negative coping variables predicted ST and all of itssubscales except one. The positive coping variable largely predicted STS, the perceptionof God as caring variable less so and the negative coping variable not at all. The findingswere interpreted as suggesting that both perceiving God as caring and using positivecoping strategies limit the problematic feelings associated with negative coping strategies,allowing the self transcendence implicit in them to appear.

Religious coping strategies

Individuals who take their religion seriously usually try to apply its teachingsin their daily life. In doing this, they develop religious strategies for coping withadverse events (Pargament, Smith, Koenig, & Perez, 1998), through which theycreate meanings, purposes, get emotional comfort, relate to others, and growspiritually (Pargament, 1997). The literature has focused on the contrasting

Correspondence: Philip Greenway, Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria,Australia, 3168. E-mail: phillip.greenway@education.monash.edu.au

ISSN 1367-4676 print/ISSN 1469-9737 online � 2007 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/13694670600719839

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mental health effects of beneficial and problematic strategies (Pargament, 1997;Pargament, Koenig, & Perez, 2000). Positive strategies have been associated withbetter mental health and a variety of signs that a person is committed to both theirreligion and their relationship with God (Pargament, 1997). Negative strategieshave been linked with poorer mental and physical health and with ‘‘a tenuousrelationship with God, spiritual struggle, and a threatening view of the world’’(Pargament, 1997; Pargament et al., 1998, p. 720). For example, Pargament(1997) found that perceiving God as punishing was related to negative moods andpessimistic assessments of the outcomes of adverse events.

Religious coping strategies and spiritual transcendence

Religious coping patterns are not just about problematic life events but also aboutrelating to God, and in doing so transcending one’s own individual perspective onlife. Wong-MacDonald and Gorsuch (2000), for example, described a surrenderstyle of coping in which individuals do not passively wait for God to solve theirproblems, but actively relinquish their personal will to God’s rule, a selftranscending strategy if a somewhat passive one. They found that after controllingthe effects of other coping styles, this style correlated positively with intrinsicreligiousness, spiritual well-being, and negatively with extrinsic religiousness.McElroy (1999) examined the impact of three distinct images of God, as loving,controlling, or distant on three styles of religious problem solving, collaborative,deferring, and self-directing, in a college-student population. One of their findingsindicated that, for participants with an image of God as loving, a passive anddeferring coping style was effective when dealing with problems, a coping strategysimilar to that classified by Pargament et al. (2000) as potentially problematic.A further critical factor for facilitating spiritual growth may be what Batsonand Schoenrade (1991a, 1991b) called ‘‘quest motivation.’’ Questing individualsattempt to move beyond an egocentric perspective to embrace problematic,spiritual experiences, face existential questions without reducing their complexity,and perceive both self-criticism and religious doubt as positive experiences. Thesethree examples illustrate that self transcendence would seem to be essential toreligious coping strategies, even if it is often only implicitly expressed.Individuals can benefit from learning to deal with the negative effects of adverse

situations or disturbing inner experiences such as doubt, anger, and discontent.Pargament (1997, p. 291) suggested that anger could be seen as causing the‘‘positive disintegration’’ described by Dabrowski (1964), which begins thecathartic, painful process of constructive personal change. Negative, religiouscoping patterns could then sometimes represent an internal struggle which mightultimately foster spiritual change. Likewise, King (2001) pointed out that distress,regret, and disappointment are inescapable in life and opportunities for growth.She argued that complex, interpersonal situations can pull individuals to higherlevels of ego development (King, 2001). Similar processes may be at work inpeople developing their relationship with God. Probably, most people experience

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both positive and negative coping strategies, and these experiences may interactto further the self transcendence characteristic of intrinsic spirituality.

Self transcendence

According to Cloninger, Pryzbeck, Svrakic and Wetzel (1994) self transcendenceis learned, appears in adulthood, and regulates individuals’ personal and socialeffectiveness. The three subscales of their Self Transcendence Scale, ST, arebased on bipolar constructs, individuals presumably moving from the negative tothe positive poles as they mature spiritually. The first subscale, Self-Forgetful vs.Self Conscious Experience, measures how much individuals stay in a self-conscious mind set as opposed to becoming forgetful of self interest andbecoming absorbed in or fascinated by one thing, losing a sense of time and place.The second, Transpersonal Identification vs. Self Isolation, measures a sense ofspiritual union with anything or everything outside one’s individual self. As aresult, a person may feel guided by ‘‘a wonderful intelligence, which is possiblythe source of all phenomena.’’ He or she may downplay a sense of separationbetween themselves and others, experiencing God in their lives as immanent in allthings (Cloninger et al., 1994). Conversely, others may see themselves explicitlyas individuals with only indirect connections with others. The third dimension,Spiritual Acceptance vs. Rational Materialism, measures a tendency to acceptrelationships between people and things, as sometimes rationally unexplainable.Such individuals believe in miracles, extrasensory experiences, and other similarphenomena, and are comforted by spiritual experiences. High scorers onthe whole scale were described as wise and patient, creative and self-forgetful,and as feeling at one with the universe. Low scorers were described asimpatient, unimaginative, self conscious, proud, and lacking humility(Cloninger et al., 1994).Piedmont (1999) similarly understood self transcendence as a capacity to

experience life from outside the usual limits of space and time, and to be sensitiveto a unity underlying the diverse strivings of nature and human relationships.His approach, however, was somewhat different in that he saw self transcendenceas an expression of a motivational trait or a nonspecific, affective force that drives,directs, and selects behaviors, linking individuals with a higher reality (Piedmont,2004). As such, it was endogenous, stable over time, like other motivational traits,such as power and affiliation. Moreover, it prompted individuals to express selftranscendence in a variety of ways, religious, altruistic, nationalistic, andhumanistic. He developed the Spiritual Transcendence Scale to have threerelated constructs (Piedmont, 1999). The first, Prayer Fulfillment, representsthe feelings of joy and contentment that result from personal encounters witha transcendent reality (Piedmont, 2004). The second, Universality, reflects thebelief that there is a higher level of existence through which all of life isinterconnected. The third, Connectedness, measures a belief that one is part ofa larger, human orchestra, whose contribution is indispensable in creating life’scontinuing harmony.

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The present study sought to show that both positive and negativecoping strategies can predict self transcendence, because both incorporatetranscendent attitudes, even if negative strategies do so only implicitly andsimultaneously with problematic feelings. Likewise, perceiving God as caringmay be an essential concomitant to transcendence expressed in copingstrategies. Positive coping styles may represent spiritual growth already made,or an unquestioning spirituality, and should predict self transcendence.Negative strategies may do so only in the positive context of feelings of Godas caring. This study did not attempt to measure how the interaction betweenpositive and negative strategies actually works, nor how spiritual growth occurs.We included STS as a comparison measure of self transcendence because, unlikeST, its item content is positive without much hint of spiritual difficulties.We expected it to be more strongly associated with positive than with negativecoping styles.

Method

Participants and procedure

The 190 participants were 95 Catholics (35 men, mean age¼ 50.06, and 60women, mean age¼ 55.88), and 103 Anglicans (29 men, mean age¼ 56.97, and74 women, mean age¼ 56.65), who practised their religion on a weekly basis.

Instruments

Spiritual Transcendence Scale. The Spiritual Transcendence Scale (STS;Piedmont, 1999) is a 24-item scale, STS-tot, with three sub-scales:Universality, Prayer Fulfillment, and Connectedness, each with eight items.It employs a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (stronglyagree). Piedmont reported (1999) acceptable reliabilities, Cronbach’s alpha being0.87, 0.83, and 0.64 for Universality, Prayer Fulfillment, and Connectedness,respectively.

Self Transcendence Scale. This scale (ST) belongs to the Temperament andCharacter Inventory (TCI; Cloninger et al., 1994). It has three sub-scales, SelfForgetfulness vs. Self Conscious Experience, containing 11 items; TranspersonalIdentification vs. Self Isolation, containing nine items; and Spiritual Acceptancevs. Rational Materialism, containing 13 items. Cronbach’s alpha values in acommunity sample were 0.73, 0.72, and 0.74 for the three scales, respectively.The whole scale, ST-tot, has 33 items.

Religious Coping Methods, RCOPE. This scale (Pargament et al., 2000), includes21 five-item subscales describing various types of religious coping strategies,which participants might have used in dealing with the most serious, negativeevent occurring in the three years prior to testing. It employs a 4-point Likertscale ranging from 0 ‘‘not at all’’ to 3 ‘‘a great deal.’’

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We chose three problematic subscales, which specifically involve only a person’srelationship to God, and combined them to form a variable, Negative ReligiousCoping (N-Cop). We did this because we wanted to focus on transcendence asemphasizing a higher reality. These strategies were Punishing God Reappraisal,which redefines the stressful incident as a punishment from God for a person’ssins; Reappraisal of God’s Powers, which redefines God’s power to influence thestressful situation as limited; and Spiritual Discontent, which measures howmuch a person reports experiencing confusion and dissatisfaction with theirrelationship with God in regard to the stressful situation. Cronbach’s alpha forN-Cop in the present sample was 0.85.A further three subscales were chosen, which dealt specifically with

beneficial coping strategies, again specifically involving only a person’s relationshipwith God, and combined them to form a single variable, Positive ReligiousCoping, P-Cop. These variables were Benevolent Religious Appraisal, whichredefines the stressful incident as benevolent or potentially beneficial,Collaborative Religious Coping, which describes a participant as seeking togain control over the stressful event through a partnership with God in problemsolving, and Spiritual Connection, which referred to the participant experiencinga spiritual connectedness with forces that transcend the individual in respondingto the adverse event. Cronbach’s alpha for P-Cop in the present sample was 0.88.

God Cares. Greenway, Milne and Clarke (2003) took 27 items from theReligious Status Inventory (Maloney, 1992) which measured personal attitudesto God, specifically (1) whether individuals felt the presence of God in their life,(2) whether they felt that God cared for them, and (3) whether they had anegative image of God. An exploratory factor analysis yielded three factors whichwere labelled God in Life, God Cares, and Negative Image of God. The scale,God Cares, God-c, was used in the current study. It consists of 10 items, whichmeasure an individual’s feeling that God cares for them; for example, one itemread: ‘‘I feel safe and secure knowing that God loves me.’’ The alpha for this scalewas 0.82.

Results

A series of hierarchical regressions were used in which the ST-tot and STS-totand each of their subscales were in turn the dependent variables. Of the threeindependent variables, the perception of God variable, God-c, was entered in thefirst step, P-Cop in the second, and N-Cop in the third. This order was chosenbecause we expected the first two variables to account for the major share ofthe variance in the dependent variables. But we also expected that N-Cop wouldaccount for significant additional variance, but would only do so where God-chad been significant in the first step. We did not expect N-Cop to predict anysignificant variance in STS-tot, nor any of its subscales, regardless of God-c doingso, but only in ST and its subscales. Table I shows the correlation matrix ofthe variables in the analyses.

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ST-tot

In step 1, God-c was entered and accounted for 14.3% of the variance in ST-tot(R2

¼ 0.143, F(1, 186)¼ 30.99, p50.0001); in step 2, P-Cop explained a further8.3% (R2 change¼ 0.083, F(1, 185)¼ 19.83, p50.0001); and in step 3, N-Copexplained a further 4.6% (R2 change¼ 0.046, F(1, 184)¼ 11.62, p50.001).In step 3, God-c (�¼ 0.291, t¼ 3.75, p50.0001), P-Cop (�¼ 0.317, t¼ 4.30,p50.0001), and N-Cop (�¼ 0.228, t¼ 3.41, p50.001) significantly predictedST-tot.

ST1, Self Forgetfulness vs. Self Conscious Experience

In step 1, God-c accounted for 4.3% of the variance in ST1 (R2¼ 0.043,

F(1, 186)¼ 8.26, p50.005); in step 2, P-Cop explained 5.9% (R2

change¼ 0.059, F(1, 185)¼ 12.16, p50.001); and in step 3, N-Cop explainedfurther 6.5% (R2 change¼ 0.065, F(1, 184)¼ 15.35, p50.0001). In step 3,God-c (�¼ 0.165, t¼ 2.00, p50.047), P-Cop (�¼ 0.260, t¼ 3.31, p50.001),and N-Cop (�¼ 0.280, t¼ 3.92, p50.0001) significantly predicted ST1.

ST2, Transpersonal Identification vs. Self Isolation

In step 1, God-c accounted for 12.1% of the variance in ST2 (R2¼ 0.121,

F(1, 186)¼ 25.71, p50.0001), and in step 2, P-Cop explained a further 4.4%(R2

¼ 0.044, F(1, 185)¼ 9.77, p50.002), in step 3, N-Cop explained 4.6%(R2

¼ 0.046, F(1, 184)¼ 10.77, p50.001). In step 3, God-c (�¼ 0.308, t¼ 3.82,p50.0001), P-Cop (�¼ 0.225, t¼ 2.94, p50.004), and N-Cop (�¼ 0.228,t¼ 3.28, p50.001), significantly predicted ST2.

Table I. Zero-order correlations among the study measures, n¼ 189.

ST-tot ST1 SR2 ST3 STS-tot Pr-F Univ Con P-Cop

ST-totST1 0.83**ST2 0.72** 0.46**ST3 0.73** 0.37** 0.28**STS-tot 0.58** 0.31** 0.49** 0.56**Pr-F 0.60** 0.36** 0.46** 0.58** 0.83**Univ 0.50** 0.27** 0.38** 0.52** 0.89** 0.63**Con 0.28** 0.11 ns 0.33** 0.23** 0.70** 0.31** 0.49**P-Cop 0.44** 0.24** 0.35** 0.42** 0.44** 0.47** 0.39** 0.15*N-Cop 0.13 ns 0.20** 0.13 ns �0.05 ns 0.01 ns �0.12 ns 0.11 ns 0.04 ns �0.09 ns

Note: ST-tot: Self Transcendence Scale, (TCI); ST1: Self Forgetfulness vs. Self ConsciousExperience: ST2: Transpersonal Identification vs. Self Isolation: ST3: Spiritual Acceptance vs.Rational Materialism: Pr-F: Prayer Fulfillment; Univ: Universality; Con: Connectedness; STS-tot:Self Transcendence Scale (Piedmont). ns: not significant.*p50.05; **p50.01.

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ST3, Spiritual Acceptance vs. Rational Materialism

In step 1, God-c accounted for 13.1% of the variance in ST3 (R2¼ 0.131,

F(1, 186)¼ 27.97, p50.0001); in step 2, P-Cop explained 7.4% (R2

change¼ 0.074, F(1, 185)¼ 17.24, p50.0001); and in step 3, N-Cop explainedan insignificant 0.1%. In step 3, God-c (�¼ 0.208, t¼ 2.57, p50.011) and P-Cop(�¼ 0.315, t¼ 4.10, p50.0001) significantly predicted ST3, and N-Cop did not.

STS-tot

In step 1, God-c accounted for 5.5% of the variance in STS-tot (R2¼ 0.055,

F(1, 186)¼ 10.73, p50.001); in step 2, P-Cop explained 9.6% (R2¼ 0.096,

F(1, 185)¼ 21.03, p50.0001); and in step 3, N-Cop explained an insignificant1.4%. In step 3, only P-Cop (�¼ 0.353, t¼ 4.47, p50.0001) significantlypredicted STS-tot.

Pr-F

In step 1, God-c accounted for 16.3% of variance in Pr-F (R2¼ 0.163,

F(1, 186)¼ 36.34, p50.0001); in step 2, P-Cop explained 7.5% (R2¼ 0.075,

F(1, 185)¼ 18.23, p50.0001); and in step 3, N-Cop explained no furthervariance. In step 3, God-c (�¼ 0.249, t¼ 3.15, p50.002) and P-Cop (�¼ 0.318,t¼ 4.42, p50.0001) significantly predicted Pr-F.

Univ

In step 1, God-c accounted for an insignificant 1.7% of variance (R2¼ 0.017,

F(1, 186)¼ 318, ns); in step 2, P-Cop accounted for 10.8% (R2¼ 0.108,

F(1, 185)¼ 22.72, p50.0001); and in step 3, N-Cop accounted 2.2%(R2

¼ 0.022, F(1, 185)¼ 5.52, p50.02). In step 3, P-Cop significantly predictedUniv (�¼ 0.368, t¼ 4.63,p50.0001), asdidN-Cop(�¼ 0.170, t¼ 2.35,p50.02).

Con

In step 1, God-c accounted for an insignificant 0.4% of variance; in step 2, P-Copaccounted for 2.1% (R2

¼ 0.021, F(1, 186)¼ 3.97, p50.048); and in step 3,N-Cop failed to account for any variance. None of the three variables predictedCon in step 3.

Discussion

The findings for ST have potentially important theoretical implications.Perceiving that God cares for one and the use of positive coping strategieslargely predicted self transcendence, as measured by the ST and STS scales.One might expect this finding as self transcendence in both scales includes a senseof belonging to an overarching reality. However, negative coping strategies alsopredicted self transcendence for ST-tot, ST1, and ST2, but not as strongly asthe other two predictors. We included ST because it incorporates egocentric or

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un-self transcending characteristics of personality, which would resonate withparticipants struggling with the problematic thoughts and feelings involved innegative coping strategies. Despite their negative feelings, participants seem tohave held onto something positive enough to preserve their relationship with Godand to form self-transcending traits.Most people probably experience themselves as using both positive and negative

strategies intermittently. The dissonance caused by their doing so could push themtowards either a negative or positive resolution. They could begin to reject theirspiritual beliefs or reach for a deeper understanding of them. In this situation, ifthey feel that God cares, and gain some tangible benefit from positive religiouscoping strategies, one may speculate that individuals reach a point at which theyrealize that negative strategies, if uncontained, might ultimately destroy theirpositive feelings about God’s care and providence. Then, the perception that Godcares may limit the effect of negative feelings carried by problematic copingstrategies. When this function is effective, negative coping strategies are likely topredict self transcendence, because individuals are in the process of letting go of anegocentric perspective. Notably, negative strategies predicted the two subscales,whichmeasure a person’s tendency to forget self interest, ST1, and to feel a sense ofspiritual union with everything outside oneself and a sense of universality, STS2.The findings for STS were largely quite different, this scale being almost totally

positive in item content. Perceiving that God cares only predicted Pr-F, andN-Cop predicted only Univ. P-Cop predicted STS and its subscales quitestrongly. These findings highlight the possibility that one may need to feel thatGod cares, when one is under the influence of negative feelings and not so muchwhen one experiences positive feelings. Perhaps, people employing mostlypositive strategies do not need to emphasize God’s care, as they take it forgranted, whereas those who use negative strategies need to feel it.We did not expect STS to pick up associations with negative coping strategies,

at least in people who practise their religion seriously. In another context, that ofan outpatient, substance-abuse programme, Piedmont (2004) demonstrated thatUniversality was able to predict psychosocial changes for the better. In otherwords, clients who scored higher on this scale in the pre-treatment phase showedbetter outcomes than those who scored lower. He concluded that perhapslearning about universality counteracts the narcissism that is so oftencharacteristic of the substance abuser and provides a guideline for how to livean emotionally fulfilling life (Piedmont, 2004, p. 220). In the present study,N-cop did predict Univ, perhaps demonstrating that this scale, while describinga sense that all life is connected and that one has a shared responsibility of onefor another, implicitly picks up the opposite of feelings of universality, namely,feelings of isolation and abandonment.The findings in this study have limited generalizability, the sample being entirely

Christian. In addition, it did not focus on how positive and negative strategies affectone another, or on what exactly was the effect of feeling positively aboutGod’s care. The findings need to be confirmed and extended in further research.

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