Social Discrimination, Need to Belong, and Psychological Wellbeing Among Religious Minorities in Pakistan

Abstract

The basic objective of this study was to find out the relationship of social discrimination with psychological wellbeing in presence of the moderating role of need to belong among religious minorities in Pakistan. The sample consisted of 162 adult religious minorities participants. Online questionnaires which included demographics, Daily Life Discrimination Scale (Williams et al., 1997), Need to Belong Scale (Leary et al., 2013), and Ryff’s Psychological Wellbeing Scale (Kallay & Rus, 2014) comprising six subscales autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, positive relations with others, personal growth and self-acceptance were used to collect the data. It was found that social discrimination has a negative relationship with the need to belong as well as psychological wellbeing. The need to belong played a moderating role in four sub variables of psychological wellbeing as autonomy, environmental mastery, self-acceptance and positive relations with others. Results also indicated that women face more social discrimination as compared to men and the Hindu and Sikh minorities face more social discrimination as compared to the Christian minority. This research may provide a stimulus for the policy makers and future researchers to learn more about the social discrimination, need to belong and psychological wellbeing of the religious minorities in Pakistan, and further, to alleviate their sufferings.