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RELIGION AND POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY IN PAKISTANZiasma Haneef Khan & P. J. Watson
Abstract:
Research in the
West increasingly demonstrates a connection between
religion and positive psychology. In the present
project, Pakistani Muslims responded to measures of
religious commitment along with scales recording an
array of positive psychological characteristics.
Especially the Religious Well-Being measure from the
Spiritual Well-Being Scale displayed positive
correlations with adaptive religious commitments and
with Existential Well-Being, Satisfaction with Life,
Gratitude, and Optimism. An Intrinsic Religious
Orientation also displayed connections with healthier
self-functioning, but an Extrinsic Social Religious
Orientation correlated negatively with Religious
Well-Being, Existential Well-Being, and Gratitude. These
data confirmed that
religion can be linked with positive psychology,
that Religious Well-Being may be an especially useful
measure in research exploring such relationships, and
that the Extrinsic Social Religious Orientation may
assess a problematic form of Muslim commitment.
Religion and Positive Psychological Functioning among
Pakistani Muslims Among the opportunities for dialogue between science and religion are investigations into relationships that might exist between religion and psychological functioning. This kind of research brings prominent perspectives within the contemporary social sciences into dialogue with the realities of religious life. The promise of such studies is increasingly obvious in a growing literature that associates religion with positive psychology. Positive psychology moves beyond traditional disciplinary emphasis on mental illness and focuses instead on the psychological dynamics that underlie human well-being (e.g., Keyes & Haidt, 2003). While psychology and religion have sometimes been in explicit opposition to each another, “the answers to life’s questions provided by both … are similar, and the new movement of positive psychology has served to highlight this” (Joseph, Linley, & Maltby, 2006, p. 210). Positive psychology, therefore, opens up new vistas for interaction between science and religion; “the integrity and autonomy of each needs to be retained, while bringing them into dialogue” with each other (Watts, Dutton, & Gulliford, 2006, p. 281). Illustration of how religion might encourage positive psychological functioning has appeared in studies of spiritual well-being. Broadly defined, spirituality refers to a personal experience of living in communion with higher or more profound realities. Early theorizing by Moberg (1971), for example, described spirituality in terms of the well-being produced by living in meaningful connection with God, self, community, and cosmos. The Spiritual Well-Being Scale (Paloutzian & Ellison, 1982 Ellison, 1983) is based upon this conceptual framework. Its Religious Well-Being Scale assesses the transcendent dimension of spirituality and makes reference to the experience of living in relationship with God. This aspect of spirituality is illustrated in the statement, “I feel most fulfilled when I am in close communion with God.” The Existential Well-Being Scale reflects instead the more worldly dimensions of spirituality. One item says, for instance, “I feel a sense of well-being about the direction my life is headed in.” A broad array of studies using this Spiritual Well-Being Scale has documented the mental health advantages of both forms of spirituality (e.g., Boivin, Kirby, Underwood, & Silva, 1999). In a recent evaluation, van Dierendonck and Mohan (2006) criticized the Spiritual Well-Being Scale because “most items in the religious well-being scale explicitly refer to God” (p. 234). They complain that explicit mention of God limits the more general utility of the measure. Some religions like Buddhism make no reference to God, and new spiritual movements in the West often emphasize processes of communion not with God, but rather with deeper inner resources of the self. Such complaints may indeed be relevant to some, but certainly not all, western contexts. Even in the West, communion with God will be central to the spirituality of those with more traditional religious commitments. The same would presumably be true of Muslim spirituality outside the West. In general terms, the purpose of present study was to test the hypothesis that the Religious Well-Being Scale would usefully clarify the spirituality of Pakistani Muslims. An adequate test of this hypothesis required the examination of additional scales for measuring both positive psychology and Muslim religion. Specific aspects of positive psychology were chosen for analysis because previous research with non-Muslims had already demonstrated that the relevant scales predicted the psychological well-being of religious individuals. These instruments included measures of optimism and satisfaction with life (e.g., Salsman, Brown, Brechting, & Carlson, 2005), gratitude (e.g., McCullough, Emmons, & Tsang, 2002; Watts et al. 2006), and self-esteem (e.g., Watson, Milliron, Morris, & Hood, 1995). Religious measures chosen for
analysis had already been administered to Pakistanis,
with their implications for Muslims, thus, understood in
at least a preliminary manner (e.g.,
Khan, Watson, & Habib, 2005;
Ghorbani, Watson, & Khan, 2007). A single item
rating scale assessed overall interest in religion. The
Allport and Ross (1967) Religious Orientation Scales
measured motivations for being religious. The Intrinsic
Religious Orientation Scale seeks to record a sincere
form of commitment, is associated with higher levels of
Muslim religious interest (Khan et al.), generally
correlates with healthier psychological functioning
(Donahue, 1985), and seems especially relevant to
spirituality (van Dierendonck & Mohan, 2006). The
Extrinsic Religious Orientation Scale was designed to
assess a more maladaptive use of religion as a means to
other ends. Research, however, has identified two
factors within this Extrinsic measure (Kirkpatrick,
1989), and these two factors tend to display differing
patterns of relationship with mental health in
In summary, the most general goal
of the present project was to illustrate how a focus on
positive psychology might encourage dialogue between
science and Muslim religion. More specifically, the
purpose was to test two hypotheses about Religious
Well-Being in Method
Participants Included in the sample were 101 university students along with 31 other individuals who were not enrolled in university studies at the time of this investigation. These 57 men and 85 women had an average age of 22.3 years (SD = 2.6). The overwhelming majority was unmarried (81.0%) and maintained Sunni religious commitments (81.7%).
Measures All measures were presented in English and combined within a single questionnaire booklet. The initial section of this booklet obtained personal background information and assessed each participant’s overall interest in religion along a scale ranging from 0 (“no interest in religion at all”) to 9 (“extremely interested in religion”). This initial background section was followed, in sequence, by measures of religious orientation (Allport & Ross, 1967), optimism (Scheier & Carver, 1985), satisfaction with life (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985), gratitude (McCullough et al., 2002), spiritual well-being (Paloutzian & Ellison, 1982), and self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1989).
Religious
Orientation. Religious orientation was assessed with
versions of the Allport and Ross (1967) scales adapted
for use with Pakistani Muslims. Nine items recorded the
Intrinsic Religious Orientation. One item stated, “If I
could do what I really wanted to do, I would pray (like
offer namaz)
in the mosque or at home,” followed by response options
ranging from “a lot less” (1) to “a lot more” (5). All
other Allport and Ross items were associated with a
“strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (5) response
format. Other illustrative Intrinsic Scale items
included claims that “my whole manner of life is based
on my religion” and that “I have often had a strong
sense of Allah’s presence.” Analysis of the Extrinsic
Religious Orientation focused on the two factors
described by Kirkpatrick (1989). Three items expressed
the Extrinsic Personal factor, as exemplified in the
statement, “What religion offers me most is comfort in
times of trouble and sorrow.” The Extrinsic Social
factor included three items as well. An illustrative
item said, “I go to the
mosque or a religious gathering (like
Darsi-Quran wa
sunnah, Quran khawani, Khatam, Mehfili-Milad) mostly
to spend time with my friends.” Again, religious
orientation measures have been used in numerous studies
examining Muslim samples (Ghorbani et al. 2007),
including investigations conducted in
Optimism. The
Scheier and Carver (1985) Life Orientation Test measured
optimism. The same “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly
agree” (5) Likert scale was used with the eight items of
this instrument. Optimism was expressed, for example, in
the statement that “I always look on the bright side of
things” and in the reverse scored assertion that “I
rarely count on good things happening to me.” The Life
Orientation Test is a frequently used index of optimism
and has well-established validity (e.g., Scheier &
Carver, 1992).
Satisfaction with
Life. Five items made up the Satisfaction with Life
Scale (Diener et al., 1985). Each was associated with a
seven-point “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree”
(7) response format. The Satisfaction with Life scale
has been widely used (Pavot & Diener, 1993). The
nature of this measure is suggested in the claim,
“If I could live my life over, I would change nothing.”
Gratitude. The seven-point response options used to assess Satisfaction with Life were employed with the six-item Gratitude Scale as well (McCullough et al., 2002; also see Watkins, 2004). Gratitude appeared in such self-reports as “I have so much in life to be thankful for” and in the reverse scored belief that “when I look at the world, I don’t see much to be grateful for.” Spiritual Well Being. With the Spiritual Well Being Scale (Paloutzian & Ellison, 1982; Bufford, Paloutzian, & Ellison, 1991), minor modifications in some Religious Well Being items made the measure more appropriate for use with Pakistani Muslims (e.g., “I believe that Allah loves me and cares about me” and the reverse score statement that “I don’t find much satisfaction in private prayer with Allah”). Existential Well Being was evident is such claims as “I feel that life is a positive experience” and the reverse scored statement that “I don’t enjoy much about life.” A seven-point Likert scale was again used with these scales.
Self-Esteem.
Ten items made up the widely used
Procedure Fifteen graduate students collected
data from a convenience sample taken from various
departments at the Results Relationships among the religion measures are presented in Table 1. Religious Well Being correlated positively with the Intrinsic Religious Orientation, the Extrinsic Personal factor, and Religious Interest while also displaying a negative linkage with the Extrinsic Social factor. The Intrinsic Scale was also associated with greater Religious Interest and with higher scores on the Extrinsic Personal factor. Each of the positive psychology measures displayed at least two direct linkages with other measures of positive functioning (see Table 2). Existential Well Being and Optimism displayed significant relationships with all of the other measures. Gratitude and Satisfaction with Life only failed to predict higher levels of Self-Esteem. Table 3 reviews the relationships between religion and positive psychology. Religious Well Being was especially noteworthy as a predictor of more positive psychological functioning, displaying direct relationships with Existential Well Being, Optimism, Gratitude, and Satisfaction with Life. The Intrinsic Scale was also associated with higher scores on Existential Well Being, Gratitude, and Satisfaction with Life. Religious Interest only predicted higher levels of Gratitude. In contrast, the Extrinsic Social factor correlated negatively rather than positively with Existential Well Being and Gratitude. The Extrinsic Personal factor displayed no significant associations with positive psychology, although the correlation with Gratitude approached significance (p = .053). Discussion At the most general level, this investigation sought to illustrate how research into positive psychology might have a potential to encourage dialogue between science and Muslim religion. The results offered clear support for that possibility. As hypothesized, the Religious Well-Being Scale correlated positively with measures of both Muslim religious commitment and positive psychology. The Religious Well-Being Scale has been criticized for focusing too narrowly on communion with God as a foundation for spirituality (van Dierendonck & Mohan, 2006), but for Muslims, communion with God would presumably be central to spiritual well-being. Religious Well-Being items were modified slightly to make them more appropriate for use with Pakistani Muslims. This revised measure included such statements as “I believe that Allah loves me and cares about me” and “my relationship with Allah contributes to my sense of well-being.” As expected, agreement with these and similar expressions of Muslim spirituality was associated with greater Existential Well-Being, Optimism, Gratitude, and Satisfaction with Life. Among the religious measures,
Religious Well-Being was the most consistent and
strongest, but certainly not the only correlate of
positive psychology. The Intrinsic Scale (Allport &
Ross, 1967) is widely used to assess a more sincere and
adaptive form of faith (Donahue, 1985). Consistent with
this understanding of the measure, the Intrinsic Scale
displayed direct associations with Religious Well-Being,
Existential Well-Being, Gratitude, and Satisfaction with
Life. Merely expressing an interest in religion was also
linked with greater Religious Well-Being and Gratitude.
Previous research in Perhaps especially noteworthy were
data obtained for the Extrinsic Social factor. When
first used in Positive psychology clearly proved to be relevant to the Pakistani Muslim context. Gratitude seemed particularly noteworthy in that it exhibited the strongest linkages of a psychological scale with Religious Well-Being and Intrinsic Religious Orientation. It also displayed associations with each of the other religious variables that at least approached statistical significance. Existential Well-Being and Satisfaction with Life also predicted higher scores on Religious Well-Being and the Intrinsic Orientation, and Optimism correlated positively with Religious Well-Being. Only Self-Esteem failed to correlate with any measure of Muslim religious commitment. Future studies may, therefore, need to determine if different measures of positive self-regard might yield more promising results with Muslim samples. Most importantly, however, these findings confirmed that research into positive psychology has a potential to promote a deeper understanding of Muslim psychological functioning. Conclusions based upon these data must be tempered by an awareness of the limitations of this project. University students served as the research participants, and older individuals with perhaps more cognitively and experientially mature forms of faith might display even more striking patterns of results. In addition, positive psychology represents a broad area of research that examines many aspects of human well-being that were not included in this study (e.g., Keyes & Haidt, 2003). An important task for the future will be to examine a broader array of positive psychological constructs within the Muslim context. Moreover, the religious variables assessed in this project were all developed in the West and thus not designed to measure explicitly Muslim forms of commitment. Stronger patterns of relationship might appear with measures formally designed to assess Muslim dimensions of faith. Ideal measures for promoting dialogue between science and Muslim religion may also need to express positive psychology in more explicitly religious terms. In at least some relationships, Existential Well-Being tended to correlate more strongly than Religious Well-Being with other indicators of positive psychology. This result might merely mean that Existential Well-Being and the other positive psychology scales used the same non-religious language of contemporary psychology and that this commonality in language produced the relatively stronger associations. Similarly, Religious Well-Being might correlate more strongly with measures of positive psychology if they too were expressed a religious rather than in a more contemporary psychological language. In other words, religions may have their own language of well-being, and any fully adequate study of positive psychology within the Muslim context might need to include explicitly Muslim articulations of healthier self-functioning. Findings obtained with samples from other religions have already supported this kind of possibility (e.g., Watson, 1993; Watson et al., 1995). In conclusion, opportunities for encouraging dialogue between science and Muslim religion may exist in studies that empirically examine religious commitments and positive psychology. The results of this investigation clearly supported that suggestion, and the Religious Well-Being Scale appeared to be especially promising in efforts to explore the possibilities. The Intrinsic Religious Orientation Scale may be useful as well, but motivations reflected in the Extrinsic Social factor may be incompatible with Muslim spirituality. These and many other issues deserve additional attention in research programs that formally explore the positive psychology of Muslim religion. REFERENCES AND END NOTES
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