Personality, Religious and Spiritual Struggles, and Well-Being

The current research examined whether personality traits and religiousness predict features of religious and spiritual (r/s) struggles and whether features of r/s struggles predict well-being when accounting for personality traits and religiousness. Participants comprised American adults from an online study (N = 418) and undergraduates (N = 965) who reported an ongoing r/s struggle. Overall, people with lower neuroticism and higher religiousness reported more favorable attributions of God's intent in the struggle, more meaning found in the struggle, as well as greater spiritual growth and less spiritual decline as a potential result of the struggle. In turn, these more positive perceptions of the r/s struggle predicted a modest amount of unique variance in well-being (higher satisfaction with life and self-esteem, less depression and anxiety) even when controlling for personality and religiousness. Thus, adjustment to specific r/s struggles may have a distinct role in predicting psychological health.