Record Detail

Research indicates that people with strong social support networks tend to cope more effectively with stressful life events. This
study aims to contribute to this literature in three ways. First, we assess spiritual social support that was received in religious
institutions. Spiritual support is assistance that is provided with the explicit purpose of increasing the religious beliefs and
behaviors of the recipient. Second, an effort was made to see if potential stress-moderating effects of spiritual support are more
likely to arise among extraverts than among introverts. Third the data come from a recent nationwide survey (N = 1657).
Statistical tests were performed to see if there is a three-way interaction between stress, spiritual support, and extraversion on
anxiety. The findings indicate that strong spiritual support moderates the relationship between stress and anxiety, but only among
highly extraverted study participants. In contrast, spiritual support tends to exacerbate the relationship between stress and anxiety
among study participants with very low extraversion scores (i.e., introverts). The theoretical implications of these findings are
discussed.