Religiosity, spirituality and cognitive strategies of emotional regulation in higher education students

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to analyze whether there are differences in the cognitive strategies of emotional regulation according to the level of spirituality and religiosity experienced by a sample of higher education students living in Argentina. A total of 191 subjects (48 men and 143 women) between 18 and 45 years of age (M = 24,14; SD = 4,77) participated. The Assessment of Spirituality and Religious Sentiments Scale (ASPIRES) by Simkin (2017) and the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) by Medrano et  al. (2013) were applied. The non-parametric Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis test was applied as well to achieve the aforementioned objective. In relation to the level of religiosity, significant values were found in the dimensions positive reappraisal (p = 0,038) and refocus on planning (p = 0,002). Subjects with higher levels of religiosity presented higher scores in these adaptive strategies of emotional regulation. When analyzing differences in cognitive emotional regulation strategies as a function of spirituality, subjects with low prayer realization had higher scores on the maladaptive strategies: other-blame (p = 0,010), self-blame (p = 0,026), catastrophizing (p = 0,000), and rumination (p = 0,041). At the same time, significant values were obtained in positive reappraisal (p  =  0,010) and positive refocusing (p  =  0,030), with higher scores in these adaptive strategies for those subjects with higher prayer realization. On the universality dimension, high-scoring subjects had higher mean ranks on all adaptive strategies: acceptance (p = 0,041), putting in perspective (p = 0,014), positive reappraisal (p = 0,003), refocus on planning (p = 0,002), and positive focusing (p = 0,006). In conclusion, subjects with greater religiosity and spirituality would use more adaptive cognitive emotional regulation strategies. Implications of these findings for understanding how these aspects of religiosity and spirituality impact on cognitive emotional regulation in higher education students are discussed.