Kenneth I. Pargament, Joseph Kennell, William Hathaway, Nancy Grevengoed, Jon Newman, Wendy Jones
8 min
This study explores the role of religion in how individuals cope with life problems. While prior research often treats religion as a singular variable, the authors propose that religious people approach problem-solving using three distinct styles:
The authors developed the Religious Problem-Solving Scales to measure these styles and administered them to 197 church members, analyzing their relationship to standardized measures of religious orientation and personal competence (such as self-esteem and sense of control).
The factor analysis confirmed the existence of these three styles, showing they are distinct but interrelated.
This study demonstrates that the impact of religion on an individual's mental health is not uniform; rather, it depends heavily on the specific way an individual integrates their faith into their problem-solving process. By empirically mapping these styles, the researchers provide a framework for counselors to understand why some religious approaches foster adaptive, competent functioning while others may reinforce passivity or dependency.
Kenneth I. Pargament, Joseph Kennell, William Hathaway, Nancy Grevengoed, Jon Newman, Wendy Jones, Religion and the Problem-Solving Process: Three Styles of Coping, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 27, No. 1 (Mar., 1988), pp. 90-104
Alex: They built questionnaire items around phases of problem-solving: defining the problem, considering alternatives, choosing and implementing a solution, then reassessing its meaning. They also included managing emotions throughout. Each style was represented across those same activities.
Sam: So they weren't comparing prayer with planning. They were asking how the relationship with God appeared within comparable problem-solving tasks.
Alex: Yes. Participants rated how often each statement applied, from never to always. The questionnaire mixed 36 items covering the proposed styles. That gave the authors a way to test whether responses actually separated as predicted.
Sam: Who completed it? The setting seems especially relevant when you're measuring people's relationships with God.
Alex: The study included 197 members drawn from a Presbyterian church and a Missouri Lutheran church in the Midwest. Participants were almost exclusively white, and most attended services regularly. They completed the questionnaires anonymously at their churches.
Sam: So this isn't a comparison across religions, or between believers and nonbelievers. Within that setting, did the proposed distinctions hold up?
Alex: The authors used factor analysis, which tests whether responses cluster into distinct dimensions. The resulting clusters closely matched the proposed styles. Together, they accounted for 86 percent of the common variance—the variation the items shared.
Sam: That supports the questionnaire's structure. It doesn't yet show whether any style goes with better functioning.
Alex: The scales also had high internal consistency, meaning their items agreed strongly with one another. But you're right: competence was a separate question. Here, that meant questionnaire measures of self-esteem, perceived control, tolerance of differences, and active, planned problem-solving.
Sam: Before we get to competence, did the styles just reproduce familiar differences in religious commitment?
Alex: They related to different aspects of religion. After accounting for overlap among styles, Deferring was associated with external motives for religion, orthodox beliefs, and perceived control by God. Collaborative was associated with prayer, religious importance, and religion as an internal motivating force.
Sam: So people could report God's involvement for different reasons: reliance on external authority, or a personally committed relationship. What about Self-Directing?
Alex: It was associated with less prayer and lower traditional religious commitment on several measures. But it also had a small positive association with a questioning, searching approach to religion. The authors explicitly caution against calling it entirely nonreligious.
Sam: Now the central comparison: which approaches were associated with competence, as they measured it?
Alex: Deferring showed the clearest unfavorable pattern: lower personal control and self-esteem, less active planning, more intolerance of differences, and greater perceived control by chance. Self-Directing had more modest support: higher personal control and self-esteem, but no significant relationship with the other competence measures.
Sam: And Collaborative? The opening suggests partnership differs from waiting, but does that difference show up without statistical adjustment?
Alex: Not as predicted. In the initial correlations, Collaborative had no significant association with most competence measures. It even had a small negative association with personal control. The favorable pattern appeared only after accounting for the other coping styles.
Sam: That's a consequential qualification. Why might adjusting for the other styles change the picture so much?
Alex: Collaborative and Deferring scores were positively related. People reporting partnership also tended to report some waiting for God. The authors used partial correlations—associations after statistically accounting for other measured variables—to separate each style's relationship with competence from that overlap.
Sam: So they weren't comparing separate groups of collaborators and deferrers. The same person could score on both, and the analysis tried to distinguish their associations.
Alex: After that adjustment, Collaborative was associated with greater personal control, higher self-esteem, and less perceived control by chance. It still wasn't significantly related to tolerance of differences or active planning. The positive result is therefore narrower than “collaboration means better competence.”
Sam: What stops us from concluding that encouraging collaboration would improve those outcomes?
Alex: The design doesn't establish direction. The authors suggest that people with different levels of competence may be drawn to different styles. They also propose that styles might encourage or inhibit competence over time. These questionnaires cannot resolve which process is operating.
Sam: And waiting might mean something different when there's little anyone can change. Do the authors allow for that?
Alex: They do. They suggest Self-Directing may help most in personally controllable situations. With illness, accidents, or death, Collaborative or Deferring approaches could be more helpful. That's a possibility for further research, not something this study tested.
Sam: Given those qualifications, who should read the full document, and where should they begin?
Alex: Researchers studying religious coping, perceived control, or counseling should read it. Start with “Problem-Solving and Competence,” especially the contrast between the initial correlations and those adjusted for other styles. Then read how the scales were built, and the concluding discussion of different life situations.
Sam: And for someone who only needs the central lesson?
Alex: This is initial evidence from a narrow church sample, not proof that one religious approach causes better functioning. But it gives researchers a useful distinction to test. Relying on God need not mean surrendering personal agency.
Sam: Take care, and thanks for listening.