Multidimensional Understanding of Religiosity/Spirituality: Relationship to Major Depression and Familial Risk

Background. Previous research has shown prospectively that religiosity/spirituality protects against depression, but these findings are commonly critiqued on two grounds, namely: 1) apparent religiosity/spirituality reflects merely an original absence of depression or elevated mood and 2) religiosity/spirituality too often is measured as a global construct. The current study investigates the relationship between depression and religiosity/spirituality by examining its multidimensional structural integrity. Method. Confirmatory factor analyses with a previously observed cross-cultural factor structure of religiosity/spirituality variables were conducted on an independent sample, diagnostic and familial risk subgroups from this sample, and a subsample of the original cross-cultural sample. Linear regressions onto a previous diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD) five years prior to assess potential attenuating impact of a previous depression were explored.Results. Across familial risk groups and clinical subgroups, each of the previously validated religiosity/spirituality domains was confirmed, namely: religious/spiritual commitment, contemplative practice, sense of interconnectedness, experience of love, and altruistic engagement. Previous MDD diagnosis was associated with lower religious/spiritual commitment among high risk individuals, higher contemplation among low risk individuals, and lower importance of religion or spirituality regardless of risk group. Conclusions. Structural integrity was found across familial risk groups and diagnostic history for a multidimensional structure of religiosity/spirituality. Differential associations between a previous diagnosis of MDD and level of religiosity/spirituality across domains suggest a complex and interactive relation between depression, familial risk, and religiosity/spirituality. Accounting for an empirically valid, multidimensional understanding of religiosity/spirituality may advance research on mechanisms underlying the relationship between religiosity/spirituality and mental health.

Multidimensional understanding of religiosity/spirituality: relationship to major depression and familial risk

BackgroundPrevious research has shown prospectively that religiosity/spirituality protects against depression, but these findings are commonly critiqued on two grounds, namely: (1) apparent religiosity/spirituality reflects merely an original absence of depression or elevated mood and (2) religiosity/spirituality too often is measured as a global construct. The current study investigates the relationship between depression and religiosity/spirituality by examining its multidimensional structural integrity.MethodConfirmatory factor analyses with a previously observed cross-cultural factor structure of religiosity/spirituality variables were conducted on an independent sample, diagnostic and familial risk subgroups from this sample, and a subsample of the original cross-cultural sample. Linear regressions onto a previous diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD) 5 years prior to assess the potential attenuating impact of a previous depression was explored.ResultsAcross familial risk groups and clinical subgroups, each of the previously validated religiosity/spirituality domains was confirmed, namely: religious/spiritual commitment, contemplative practice, sense of interconnectedness, the experience of love, and altruistic engagement. Previous MDD diagnosis was associated with a lower religious/spiritual commitment among high-risk individuals, higher contemplation among low-risk individuals, and lower importance of religion or spirituality regardless of risk group.ConclusionsStructural integrity was found across familial risk groups and diagnostic history for a multidimensional structure of religiosity/spirituality. Differential associations between a previous diagnosis of MDD and level of religiosity/spirituality across domains suggest a complex and interactive relation between depression, familial risk, and religiosity/spirituality. Accounting for an empirically valid, multidimensional understanding of religiosity/spirituality may advance research on mechanisms underlying the relationship between religiosity/spirituality and mental health.

Bengali Women’s Writings in the Colonial Period: Critique of Nation, Narration, and Patriarchy

Critical engagements like the first autobiography written by a Bengali woman, Rasasundari Devi, and the non-fictions by Kailashbasini Devi, Krishnabhabini Das, and other women writers in the second half of the nineteenth century contested the imagined idealization of the Hindu domesticity and conjugality as spaces of loveableness and spiritual commitment. They criticized coercion in child-marriages and the forceful injunctions of the Hindu scriptures on both married and widowed women. Such rhetoric of quasi empowerment needs to be disaggregated to perpetuate issues of ‘double colonization,’ ‘dual-hold’ in feminism in India. The question is whether there can be any grounds of women’s agency in the Indian tradition. Eurocentric critiques are ill-equipped to politicize all modalities of a culture of social exclusion in Hindu imaginaries. Henceforth, as questions of equality, emancipation, and empowerment are fiercely debated in the public domain in contemporary India, we need to argue how immanent dissenting woman subjectivity can originate to counteract multiple patriarchies formed in Indian immediacies.

Education, Visual Art and Cultural Revival: Tagore, Geddes, Nivedita, and Coomaraswamy

<p>Rabindranath Tagore and Patrick Geddes were part of the same milieu long before they met. They were both internationally minded cultural thinkers. The links between them are illuminated by consideration of their links with two other internationally minded cultural activists: the Irishwoman Margaret Noble, better known as Sister Nivedita, and the historian of art and ideas Ananda Coomaraswamy. The lives of all four exemplify educational and political expression driven by spiritual commitment and underpinned by literature and the visual arts. </p>

The Islamic University of Medina since 1961: The Politics of Religious Mission and the Making of a Modern Salafi Pedagogy1

This chapter offers an analysis of how the Islamic University of Medina (IUM) was from its very inception meant to function as a Saudi state-backed Salafi missionary project with global reach. The goal was for students to return to their home countries or to travel on elsewhere after graduation for du'a, or as missionaries, to promote spiritual commitment and “correct” religious knowledge and practice. As the university president and future Grand Mufti Abd al Aziz bin Baz wrote in a prospectus published in 1971, emphasising the sacred geography of Medina and suggesting a parallel between this Saudi-backed project and the Prophet's own mission, the university was to operate as a source of modern Islamic propagation from the source of the first Islamic propagation.

Exploring nurses' personal dignity, global self-esteem and work satisfaction

Background: This study examines nurses’ perceptions of dignity in themselves and their work. Nurses commonly assert concern for human dignity as a component of the patients’ experience rather than as necessary in the nurses’ own lives or in the lives of others in the workplace. This study is exploratory and generates potential relationships for further study and theory generation in nursing. Research questions: What is the relationship between the construct nurses’ sense of dignity and global self-esteem, work satisfaction, and identified personal traits? Participants and research context: This cross-sectional correlation study used a stratified random sample of nurses which was obtained from a US University alumni list from 1965 to 2009 ( N = 133). Ethical considerations: University Institutional Review Board approval was achieved prior to mailing research questionnaire packets to participants. Participation was optional and numerical codes preserved confidentiality. Findings: Statistical results indicated a moderately strong association between the nurse’s sense of personal dignity and self-esteem ( rx = .62, p = .000) with areas of difference clarified and discussed. A positive but moderate association between nurses’ personal dignity and nurses’ work satisfaction ( rx = .37, p = .000) and a similar association between self-esteem and nurses’ work satisfaction ( rs = .29, p = .001) were found. A statistically significant difference was found ( F = 3.49 ( df = 4), p = .01) for dignity and categories of spiritual commitment and for nurses’ personal dignity when ratings of health status were compared ( F = 21.24 ( df = 4), p = .000). Discussion: Personal sense of dignity is discussed in relation to conceptual understandings of dignity (such as professional dignity) and suggests continued research in multiple cultural contexts. Conclusion: The relationships measured show that nurses’ sense of dignity has commonalities with self-esteem, workplace satisfaction, spiritual commitment, and health status; the meaning of the findings has ramifications for the welfare of nurses internationally.

A.4. Attire in Ammianus and Gregory of Tours

The fourth century historian of the Roman Empire, Ammianus Marcellinus, focuses on attire and accessories that signify high rank, status and authority. In his narrative there are a number of cases where clothing and insignia feature in illegitimate or dangerous aspirations to power, and brought destruction upon the aspirants, or threatened to. An ongoing concern for Ammianus is how appropriately attired people are. He scorns the pretentious clothing of Roman nobles and bishops, took pleasure in retailing the reaction of the emperor Julian to his overdressed barber, and considered the craven Epigonius to be a philosopher only in his attire. Gallus Caesar's forced change from high to low status clothing portended his imminent execution. In his ethnographic excurses, Ammianus uses the attire of foreign peoples to define their otherness. The sixth century historian of Merovingian Gaul, Gregory of Tours, is largely oblivious to fine apparel unless it is the shining vestments of saints and angels. Humble and harsh clothing, such as skins and hair shirts denote spiritual commitment or reorientation, a change of "habit", a declaration that can be stripped away by enemies and persecutors while leaving the faith itself intact. Real ascetics eschew footwear in winter. The most striking feature of clothing in Gregory is the magical powers, to heal or punish, that it can absorb from the bodies of holy wearers. In both authors, clothes and character may be mismatched but Ammianus does not share Gregory's fondness for simple and uncomfortable attire, and certainly not his belief that a few threads from the clothing of someone long dead can work miracles.