Constructions of religiosity,subjective well-being,anxiety,and depression in two cultures: Kuwait and USA

Abstract

Introduction: The aim of the present study was to explore the associations of religiosity with subjective well-being (SWB) and psychopathology (anxiety and depression) among college students recruited from two different cultures, Kuwait (n = 192) and the USA (n = 158).

Method: The students responded to the following scales in their native languages, Arabic and English, respectively: the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, the Love of Life Scale, the Kuwait University Anxiety Scale and the Center for Epidemiological Studies – Depression Scale. They also responded to six self-rating scales assessing happiness, satisfaction with life, mental health, physical health, religiosity and strength of religious belief.

Results: The Kuwaiti students obtained higher mean scores on religiosity, religious belief and depression than did their American counterparts, whereas American students had higher mean scores on happiness and love of life. Two factors were extracted: ‘SWB versus psychopathology’ and ‘Religiosity’.

Conclusion: Based on the responses of the present two samples, it was concluded that those who consider themselves as religious experienced greater well-being.

Keywords

anxiety Christian depression Muslim psychology of religion psychopathology religiosity subjective well-being

Introduction

Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of books and research studies on the psychology of religion (e.g. Argyle, 2000; Emmons and Paloutzian, 2003; Gorsuch, 1988; Loewenthal, 2000; Pargament, 1997; Wulff, 1997), although interest in studying the psychological aspects of religion dates back more than a century (Galton, 1872; Hall, 1882; James, 1902; Starbuck, 1899). The general objective of the present study was to explore the associations of religiosity with subjective well-being (SWB) and psychopathology (anxiety and depression) in two different cultures, Kuwait and the USA.

There is a wealth of research that suggests a positive association between religiosity and SWB, a construct that includes happiness, satisfaction with life, love of life, and physical and mental health (e.g. Ball et al., 2003; Chatters, 2000; Ellison, 1991; Ferriss, 2002; Greene and Yoon, 2004; Harris, 2002; Hill and Pargament, 2003; Koenig, 1997, 2004; Koenig et al., 2001; Larson and Larson, 2003; Levin and Chatters, 1998; Maselko and Kubansky, 2006; Rew and Wong, 2006; Richards and Bergin, 1997; Soydemir et al., 2004; Swinyard et al., 2001).

It is important to note, however, that some studies have failed to find an association between religiosity and SWB (Francis et al., 2003; Lewis, 2002; Lewis et al., 2000), although the number of these studies is small.

As for the relationship between religiosity and psychopathology, numerous studies have indicated negative associations between religiosity and anxiety, depression, neuroticism, suicidality, substance abuse, premature sexual involvement and delinquency (Baetz et al., 2004; Desrosiers and Miller, 2007; Donahue and Benson, 1995; Loewenthal and Goldblatt, 1993; Sinha et al., 2007; Walker and Bishop, 2005).

Research has been carried out on the relationship between religiosity and both SWB and psychopathology using Arab Muslim participants in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Algeria (Abdel-Khalek, 2002, 2006a, 2007c, 2008, 2009a, 2010; Abdel-Khalek and Lester, 2007, 2009; Abdel-Khalek and Naceur, 2007; Al-Kandari, 2003; Baroun, 2006). The main results of these studies were twofold: (a) there was a positive relationship between religiosity and SWB, including happiness, satisfaction with life, physical health and mental health; and (b) there was a negative relationship between religiosity and psychopathology (neuroticism, anxiety and depression).

In addition, a small number of studies have been carried out using non-Arab Muslims. Jamal and Badawi (1993) studied 325 Muslim immigrants in North America and reported that religiosity was significantly and positively related to fewer psychosomatic symptoms, more happiness in life, greater job satisfaction, greater job motivation, more organizational commitment and less job turnover. They also found that religiosity was a buffer against the dysfunctional consequences of job stress. In Pakistan, Suhail and Chaudhry (2004) recruited 1,000 Muslims and found that religious affiliation was among the better predictors of SWB. In Iran, Vasegh and Mohammadi (2007) recruited a sample of 285 Muslim medical students and found a negative association between religiosity and both anxiety and depression. In Iran also, Fanni Asl et al. (2008) found a significant positive association between religious beliefs practice and self-esteem in a sample of 202 Iranian college students.

Thorson et al. (1997) compared Kuwaiti and American college students and found that the Kuwaiti sample obtained a significantly higher mean score on internal religious motivation than did their US counterparts. This high score on religiosity might have an impact on the association between religiosity and other variables.

The three aims of this study were to (1) examine the differences between the Kuwaiti and American college students on measures of SWB and psychopathology, (2) examine the associations of religiosity with SWB and psychopathology (anxiety and depression), and (3) analyse the correlation matrices to explore the main component(s) or factors(s). It was hypothesized that (1) there will be significant differences between the two samples in the psychological traits assessed, (2) there will be a significant correlation between religiosity and SWB (positively) and psychopathology (negatively), and (3) two factors will be extracted from the correlations.

The present study is unique in a number of ways. First, the majority of published studies in this field have been carried out on Western, Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking and Judeo-Christian samples. The Arabic Muslim population is highly under-represented in this field of study. In the same vein, cross-cultural studies in this domain are few. Rarely has a research paper included respondents from two cultures; typically, the research is carried out using participants from only one culture.

Therefore, in this research, respondents from two different cultures were given the same set of questionnaires and rating scales. Incidentally, two of the four inventories were developed in an Islamic culture by a non-Western psychologist, which makes the study unique. Second, religiosity may have different meanings and impact in Christian and Muslim cultures. Furthermore, the role of religion is very different in the Islamic world than in the Western Christian world. Therefore, comparing samples in Islamic and Christian cultures is important in today’s world, which is focused on the differences between them. There is reason to hypothesize that there will be significant differences between the two samples in religiosity in that the Kuwaiti sample might obtain a higher mean score on religiosity (Thorson et al., 1997). This difference in religiosity might have an impact on the correlation between religiosity and both SWB and psychopathology.

Method

Participants

Two convenience samples were selected. The Kuwaiti sample consisted of 192 Kuwaiti Muslim undergraduates enrolled in social science courses at Kuwait University: 47 men and 145 women, with a mean age of 20.9 years (SD = 1.5). The American sample consisted of 158 undergraduates enrolled in psychology courses at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey: 45 men and 113 women, with a mean age of 21.6 (SD = 3.8).

Scales and questionnaires

Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ; Hills and Argyle, 2002). The OHQ is an improved instrument derived from the Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI). The OHI comprises 29 items, each involving the selection of one of four options that are different for each item. The OHQ includes similar items to those of the OHI, each presented as a single statement which can be endorsed on a uniform six-point Likert scale. The revised instrument is compact, easy to administer and allows endorsements over an extended range. Sequential orthogonal factor analyses of the OHQ have identified a single higher-order factor, which suggests that the construct of well-being it measures is uni-dimensional. The OHQ was translated into Arabic by the first author. Its Cronbach’s α reliabilities ranged between 0.89 and 0.91, indicating high internal consistency of the Arabic version.

Love of Life Scale (LLS; Abdel-Khalek, 2007b). The LLS contains 16 short statements (e.g. ‘There are many things that make me love life’) answered on a five-point Likert format, anchored by 1 (No) and 5 (Very much). The total score can range from 16 to 80, with higher scores denoting a higher love of life. Cronbach’s α reliability was 0.91, and one-week test-retest reliability was 0.81 among college students, indicating high internal consistency and temporal reliability. Factor analysis yielded three factors labelled ‘Positive attitude towards life’, ‘Happy consequences of love of life’ and ‘Meaningfulness of life’, with moderate inter-factor correlations. Construct validity is indicated by significant positive correlations with measures of happiness, optimism, self-esteem, hope, satisfaction with life and extraversion. A factor analysis of the total scores on the LLS and the last-mentioned six questionnaires yielded a general factor of well-being in which the LLS loaded 0.78 onto this factor. A multiple regression revealed that the best predictors of LLS were happiness, optimism, self-esteem and hope.

Kuwait University Anxiety Scale (KUAS; Abdel-Khalek, 2000, 2003a). The KUAS has four comparable Arabic, English, German and Spanish versions. It consists of 20 brief statements, each answered on a four-point intensity scale, anchored by 1 (Rarely) and 4 (Always). In previous studies on Kuwaiti samples, reliabilities of the scale ranged from 0.88 to 0.92 (Cronbach’s α), and between 0.70 and 0.93 (test-retest), indicating good internal consistency and temporal stability. The criterion-related validity of the scale ranged between 0.70 and 0.88 (five criteria), while the loadings of the scale on a general factor of anxiety were 0.93 and 0.95 in two-factor analyses, demonstrating the scale’s criterion-related and factorial validity. Discriminant validity of the scale has also been demonstrated. Factor analysis of the scale items yielded three factors labelled ‘Cognitive/Affective’, ‘Subjective’ and ‘Somatic anxiety’. The scale has displayed good psychometric properties in large Kuwaiti and Arab samples of undergraduates (Alansari, 2002, 2004), in Spanish subjects (Abdel-Khalek et al., 2004), in Saudi and Syrian subjects (Abdel-Khalek and Al-Damaty, 2003; Abdel-Khalek and Rudwan, 2001), in American subjects (Abdel-Khalek and Lester, 2003), in German subjects (Abdel-Khalek et al., 2006) and in British subjects (Abdel-Khalek and Maltby, 2009).

Center for Epidemiologic Studies – Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977). The CES-D scale is a 20-item self-report scale. It was developed to measure depressive symptomatology in adults in the general population. Items were selected from areas of depressive symptomatology previously described and validated. The items tap areas of depressed mood, feelings of guilt and worthlessness, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, psychomotor retardation, loss of appetite and sleep disturbance. The scale items emphasize the affective component and depressed mood (Katz et al., 1995). Subjects respond to each item on a four-point scale according to the frequency of occurrence in the seven days previous to the testing. It has been found to have very high internal consistency and adequate test-retest reliability. Construct validity has also been established (Radloff, 1977).

With the kind permission of the National Institute of Mental Health, the first writer translated the CES-D scale into Arabic. Two bilingual PhD psychologists and two PhD linguists were requested to check the compatibility of meaning between the Arabic and English forms of the scale. Suitable revisions and corrections were carried out. As a check on the adequacy of the English to Arabic translation, a PhD linguist who was unfamiliar with the scale translated it back from the Arabic into English. Good results were achieved. As for the Arabic form, Cronbach’s α reliabilities were 0.80 and 0.81, while one week test-retest reliability was 0.79 and 0.71 for men and women, respectively. Criterion-related validity was 0.74 and 0.83. Validity criteria were the SCL-90-D and the Hopkins Symptoms Check List – Depression Scale.

Self-rating scales. Six separate self rating-scales, in the form of questions, were used to assess happiness, satisfaction with life, mental health, physical health, religiosity and religious belief:

To what degree do you feel happy in general?

To what degree do you feel satisfied with your life in general?

What is your estimation of your mental health in general?

What is your estimation of your physical health in general?

What is your level of religiosity in general?

What is the strength of your religious belief when compared to other persons?

Each question was followed by a string of numbers from 0 to 10. The research participants were requested (a) to respond according to his or her global estimation and general feeling (not their present states), (b) to know that the 0 is the minimum and that 10 is the maximum score, and (c) to circle a number which seems to him or her to describe their actual feelings accurately. A high score indicates the rating of the trait or the attribute at a high level. The one week test-retest reliabilities of the six self-rating scales ranged between 0.76 and 0.88, indicating high temporal stability and corroborating the trait-like nature of the scores. Criterion-related validity of these scales have been adequately demonstrated (Abdel-Khalek, 2003b, 2006b, 2007a, 2009a). However, single-item self-rating scales have specific limitations. Foremost is the limited range of scores, the complexity of these constructs and the influence of social desirability (Gillings and Joseph, 1996; Leak and Fish, 1989; Lewis, 1999; Trimble, 1997).

Procedure

The four questionnaires along with the six self-rating scales were administered anonymously to students during small group sessions in their classrooms. The scales in Arabic were administered to the Kuwaiti students, while American students were given them in English. The return rate was 100% for both samples. SPSS (2009) was used for the statistical analyses for both samples. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, Pearson correlations and principal components analysis were used.

Results

Kuwaiti students obtained higher mean scores on depression and on the self-rating scales of religiosity and strength of religious belief than did their American counterparts (Table 1). On the other hand, American students obtained higher mean scores on happiness and love of life than did their Kuwaiti peers.

Table 1.

Mean (M), standard deviation (SD) and t values of the scales in Kuwaiti and US students

Scales	Kuwaiti		US		t	p
	M	SD	M	SD
Happiness	111.03	8.55	127.25	17.02	10.93	0.0001
Love of life	60.66	8.90	63.24	10.49	2.63	0.01
Happy	7.34	1.70	7.54	1.68	1.13	–
Satisfaction	7.46	1.81	7.31	1.98	0.74	–
Mental	7.22	1.96	7.59	1.73	1.85	–
Physical	7.29	1.81	7.22	1.73	0.34	–
KUAS	35.12	8.94	36.09	11.21	0.91	–
Depression	17.78	11.03	15.16	10.38	2.29	0.02
Religiosity	6.43	1.76	4.68	2.61	7.35	0.0001
Belief	7.14	2.06	4.67	2.80	9.56	0.0001

The majority of the correlations (93.3%) between the variables in the two countries were significant (Table 2). The main clusters of significant correlations were centred on the SWB variables (positive), the SWB and both anxiety and depression (negative), and the two self-rating scales of religiosity and both SWB (positive) and anxiety and depression (negative).

Table 2.

Pearson correlations between the scales for US (the upper matrix) and Kuwaiti (the lower matrix) samples

	Happiness	Love of life	Happy	Satis.	Mental	Physical	KUAS	Depr.	Relig	Belief
Happiness	–	0.676**	0.705**	0.715**	0.548**	0.487**	−0.662**	−0.728**	0.205**	0.185**
Love of life	0.617**	–	0.548**	0.524**	0.415**	0.217**	−0.466**	−0.522**	0.252**	0.261**
Happy	0.606**	0.591 **	–	0.707**	0.585**	0.252**	−0.662**	−0.657**	0.281**	0.245**
Satisfaction	0.578**	0.516**	0.742**	–	0.553**	0.367**	−0.575**	−0.586**	0.193*	0.152
Mental health	0.577**	0.485**	0.795**	0.660**	–	0.412**	−0.526**	−0.436**	0.254**	0.267**
Physical health	0.370**	0.378**	0.470**	0.337**	0.525**	–	−0.338**	−0.352**	0.165*	0.171*
KUAS	−0.461**	−0.355**	−0.414**	−0.418**	−0.441**	−0.220**	–	0.637**	−0.180*	−0.167
Depression	−0.449**	−0.365**	−0.453**	−0.445**	−0.478**	−0.250**	0.765**	–	−0.105	−0.098
Religiosity	0.258**	0.300**	0.440**	0.404**	0.350**	0.297**	−0.130	−0.227**	–	0.878**
Belief	0.277**	0.213**	0.384**	0.377**	0.399**	0.343**	−0.139	−0.186**	0.675**	–

The principal components analysis was used to analyse the two correlation matrices of each countries separately. Based on the Kaiser Unity test (i.e. the eigenvalue > 1.0), two factors were identified in both countries. The unrotated factors were rotated using the direct Varimax method of orthogonal rotation (SPSS, 2009). The two factors accounted for 58.3% and 68.4% of the total variance in the Kuwaiti and American samples, respectively (Table 3). In both countries, the first factor is a bipolar one and could be labelled ‘Subjective well-being versus psychopathology’, whereas the second factor was labelled ‘Religiosity’.

Table 3.

Orthogonal (Varimax) two factor solution for the scales for Kuwaiti and USA students

Variables	Kuwait		USA
	Factor 1	Factor 2	Factor 1	Factor 2
Happiness	0.759	0.233	0.887	−0.154
Love of life	0.670	0.260	0.728	0.020
Happy	0.722	0.488	0.845	−0.051
Satisfaction	0.683	0.429	0.811	−0.144
Mental health	0.712	0.446	0.765	0.028
Physical health	0.386	0.484	0.511	−0.007
KUAS	−0.757	0.004	−0.799	0.225
Depression	−0.755	−0.002	−0.802	0.273
Religiosity	0.114	0.844	0.381	0.883
Belief	0.071	0.869	0.369	0.890
Eigen value	3.83	2.45	4.85	1.99
% variance	38.3	24.5	48.5	19.9
Total variance	62.8		68.4

Discussion

The study of psychology of religion has received increasing attention in recent years. Notwithstanding the considerable amount of work conducted on this topic, research studies using Muslim participants, as well as cross-cultural comparisons, are scarce. The threefold hypotheses of the current investigation have been successfully borne out by significant results using samples of Kuwaiti Arabic Muslims and Americans, mainly Christians.

Some significant differences were evident between the two student samples. Kuwaitis obtained higher mean scores on the two self-rating scales of religiosity and strength of religious belief than did their American counterparts. This result is congruent with a previous finding using the Hoge’s (1972) Intrinsic Religious Motivation questionnaire with Kuwaiti and American college students (Thorson et al., 1997).

It is particularly noteworthy that reaching compatible results with questionnaires and self-rating scales may address the criticism against using a single-item measure of religiosity. As Wills (2009) reported, a single-item measure is based on the assumption that the individual will assume the most relevant meaning that comes to their mind in relation to the subject of the question and answer accordingly. Furthermore, deriving equivalent religiosity scales for respondents from two different religions is very difficult, if not impossible. Places or worship and styles of worship differ between religions. For example, a Muslim religiosity scale (Wilde and Joseph, 1997) has items such as ‘The five prayers helps me a lot’ and ‘I fast the whole month of Ramadan’. These items have no identical equivalent in Christianity. A simple translation into English will not suffice.

The high mean score of religiosity among Kuwaiti in comparison with American students may denote more importance attached to religion in the Kuwaiti Muslim society as the personal impressions reveal. Most Muslim students are involved daily in the practice of their faith, whereas American students are more secular. As Thorson et al. (1997) noted, perhaps this illustrates a cultural difference between perceived freedom to dissent. There is less social desirability, and less social pressure, in the USA attached to being religious. Alternatively, it simply could illustrate a difference between cultures in depth of faith.

American students obtained significantly higher mean scores for happiness and love of life than did their Kuwaiti peers, while the Kuwaiti students obtained a higher mean score on the depression scale than did their American counterparts. The higher scores for depression among Kuwaiti students is congruent with previous results using different measures of psychopathology (Adel-Khalek and Lester, 1999, 2002, 2006; Lester and Abdel-Khalek, 1998a, 1998b).

Regarding the associations between the study variables, the main cluster of significant inter-correlations was centred on the SWB variables in the two countries, that is, the happiness and love of life scores as well as the self-ratings of happiness, satisfaction with life, mental health and physical health, indicating the convergent validity of these scales. The second cluster was centred on the negative correlations between all the aforementioned scales and both anxiety and depression. Further supporting these results was the extraction of the first factor: ‘SWB versus psychopathology’. This factor was present in both countries.

As for the religiosity and strength of religious beliefs, all correlations with the SWB variables were significant, despite the different mean scores on religiosity and religious belief in Kuwait (high) and American (low) participants. Reaching the same result, in spite of the sharp differences between the two samples in religion, language, situation, history and culture, lends more trustworthiness to the present results. The findings of the current investigation are compatible with a considerable number of previous studies on different religions and cultures (see above in the Introduction).

Limitations

The findings from the present study must be viewed within the limitations imposed by the data. Foremost among them is the limited age range of college students. Therefore, an important next step in this endeavour would be to replicate and extend the current investigation using older age groups.

Conclusion

As far as the present study on Kuwaiti and American students is concerned, its salient finding is the high score for religiosity among the Kuwaiti students and the high mean score for happiness and love of life in the American sample. Religiosity was positively associated with all measures of SWB in both cultures, that is, participants with high scores on religiosity saw themselves as having a higher SWB. The possibility of using religious involvement in psychotherapy to assist in ameliorating pathological symptoms and in raising the sense of well-being has been explored by many therapists. An understanding of the religious beliefs, which are often idiosyncratic, is helpful in understanding the pain experienced by patients in psychotherapy. Fournier (2004) demonstrated how the religious beliefs of ‘Katie’, a young woman who killed herself, led her to have an unrealistic expectation of God’s role in her life. Her prayers to God became more demanding over time, desperate and self-centred. On the other hand, religious beliefs can provide a meaning for life, thereby promoting psychological health (Frankl, 1997). Many therapists have incorporated spirituality into psychotherapy (e.g. Pargament, 1997) and the present results support empirically this growing movement.

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