The influence of religiosity on depression moderated by external locus of control among Christian Filipinos

• Main Author: Iledan, Limuel O.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2024
• Subjects: Religiousness; Depressions; Locus of control > Philippines; Mental health—Religious aspects——Christianity; Clinical Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdm_psych/64; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etdm_psych/article/1063/viewcontent/Iledan__The_influence_of_religiosity_on_depression_moderated_by_external_locus_of_control_among_Christian_Filipinos___Copy.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

Religiosity, despite being expected to be generally beneficial, appears to have inconsistencies in research which show non-significance of its association with depression and even a reverse of what is expected. Therefore, a reinvestigation of the utility of religiosity could answer this gap in the literature. Conservation of Resources Theory by Hobfoll and Ford (2007) identifies religiosity as a resource that is hypothesized to protect individuals from depression. Furthermore, it is also hypothesized that this initial relationship could be strengthened for people with external locus of control. This helps people with external LOC to benefit more from religiosity with the potential to protect themselves from depression. This answers the gap in the literature, by looking at third-party variables to explore the insufficiency of religiosity to consistently arrive at lower levels of depression. To test this, 145 Christians participated in the study where they completed a survey disseminated online. Results of the current study reveal that religiosity did not significantly predict depression (b = 0.10, p = 0.64). This initial direction is reversed, however, and was significantly moderated by external LOC (b = -0.19, p = 0.02). This leads to the idea that for people with external LOC, religiosity was more meaningful which facilitates the influence of religiosity to alleviate feelings or symptoms of depression. In an attempt to investigate each dimension of religiosity and their association with depression, no dimension is significantly associated with depression. This is an important finding as this suggests a preferential utility of religiosity which has implications of its value and integration in psychological interventions.