Lord, Give Me Strength!: The Relationship Between Coping and Religious Plan Beliefs

Abstract

Through a survey of a sample of the Princeton undergraduate population, this research considers the relationship between coping strategies comprising religious coping and cognitive emotion regulation, and beliefs in a higher power’s plan for one’s life (RPBs). Main findings indicate a strong and significant positive correlation between religious coping and RPBs, and no relationship between cognitive emotion regulation and RPBs. This indicates that people with strong RPBs tend to use religious coping in response to stressful situations, but there is no overall effect of RPBs with regards to cognitive emotion regulation, a type of nonreligious coping. A suggested direction for future research is to continue in this vein of studying specific variables within religiosity and coping.