Does Anger Toward God Moderate the Relationship Between Religiousness and Well-Being?

Abstract

Most of the current research has found that highly religious people have better well-being compared to people with low religiousness. However, the former group is not immune from occasionally feeling anger toward God, which has an adverse effect on well-being. The purpose of this research is to study whether anger toward God moderates the effect of religiousness on the well-being of Christian college students. The data were derived from 228 respondents (55 male) from a religious university using the Four Basic Dimensions of Religiousness (4-BDRS), the Attitude toward God Scale (ATGS-9), and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). The results of the moderation analysis using Process version 3 demonstrated that Anger toward God significantly moderated the effect of religiousness toward well-being (b = .01, 95% Cl [.001, .023], t = 2.14, p < .05). The higher the level of anger toward God, the lesser the effect of religiousness on well-being. Therefore, it is essential for students to resolve their divine struggles. The implications and applications of this study are discussed.