The Role of Intrinsic Religious Motivation, Religious Coping, Patience, and Gratitude in the Development of University Students after Trauma

When people have a negative experience causing traumatic influence, some of them get stressed after the trauma and some others may experience psychological development and maturation following this experience. From this fact, some psychology theories point that the traumatised people may become individuals who look at life from different perspectives, experience psychological development and maturation, have a high psychological strength, and may turn the trauma into an opportunity for their development through their positive character strength. Posttraumatic growth arises from positive changes and developments occurring in five fields including sense of selfhood, interpersonal communications, understanding the meaning and value of life, being aware of new options and belief system, and spirituality. Accordingly, religion and spirituality is one of the fields in which individuals may show posttraumatic growth. The purpose of the current study was to detect the role of intrinsic religious motivation, religious coping, patience, and gratitude in predicting the development of university students after trauma. For this purpose, a data set including the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory, Religious Coping Scale, Intrinsic Religious Motivation Scale, Patience Scale, and Gratitude Scale along with a personal information form was used in the current study. In the study, a total of 445 students attending various faculties of Afyon Kocatepe University were chosen by random sampling. However, as the data sets that were answered randomly and in which all items of the scales were not responded were not included in the analysis, responses of 357 participants were evaluated through correlation and multilinear regression analysis. As a result of the study, positive and significant relationships were detected among the variables intrinsic religious motivation, religious coping, patience, and gratitude with the posttraumatic growth. These four variables explained the 27.6% of the total variance in development after trauma. As the t-test results related to the significance of regression coefficients were investigated, it was found that the variables of religious coping, patience, and gratitude were significant predictors for the development after trauma while intrinsic religious motivation was not detected as a significant one. According to the standardized regression coefficients, the order of importance of the predictive variables on the development after trauma was religious coping, patience, and gratitude.

Keywords

Posttraumatic Growth, Religious Coping, Intrinsic Religious Motivation, Patience, Gratitude.