An examination of religiosity, spirituality, and psychological well-being among Pagan women: a mixed method approach

Using a convergent mixed method design, the present investigation constitutes a preliminary inquiry into 246 Pagan women's definitions of religiosity and spirituality, as well as an initial examination of the relationship among religiosity, spirituality, and psychological well-being. A cluster analysis was conducted based on the Religious Commitment Index (RCI; Worthington et al., 2003) and the three subscales of the Spirituality Scale (SS; Delaney, 2005) resulting in three distinct religious-spiritual groups of Pagan women: Disengaged, Engaged, and Divided. Using two one-way analyses of variance, the three groups were found to differ significantly on measures of mental health and life satisfaction. The religiously-spiritually Disengaged cluster reported significantly lower mental health and life satisfaction. A thematic analysis was conducted in order to extract themes from Pagan women's definitions of religiosity and spirituality. A total of 11 themes emerged - five for religiosity and six for spirituality. In addition, logistic regression models revealed some relationship between the themes that emerged from Pagan women's definitions of religiosity and spirituality and their religious-spiritual group membership which was based on participants’ responses to accepted measures of religiosity and spirituality within the field.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2016

Author dc:creator

• Reed, Tamilia D.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Neville, Helen A.
• Rounds, James
• Greene, Jennifer C.
• Aber, Mark S.

• Pagan Women
• Religiosity
• Spirituality
• Psychological Well-Being
• Mental Health
• Life Satisfaction
• Paganism

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2016 Tamilia Reed

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/92698

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/92698