The Belief in Divine Control and the Mental Health Effects of Stressful Life Events: A Study of Education-Based Contingencies

Abstract

One of the most widely replicated findings within the mental health literature is that the experience of stressful life events (e.g., the death of a loved one, serious illness, divorce, loss of a job) are consistently associated with higher depressive symptoms. However, the magnitude of these effects varies such that some people invariably experience negative mental health consequences following the experience of significant life stressors, but many others do not. We consider why some individuals become more distressed than others following stressful life events by focusing on one particular religious belief: the sense of divine control. We examine how divine control changes in response to stress, and how this influences mental health differently across education levels. We analyze two waves of data from the Work, Stress, and Health Study (2005 and 2007) (N = 1279) using lagged dependent variable regression models. Results suggest that the moderating effect of changes in divine control associated with exposure to stressful life events are contingent on education level, depending on the stressful life event considered. In general, decreases in divine control after the experience of stress were found to be harmful for the mental health of the less educated, while increases in divine control were beneficial for the well-educated. We interpret our findings in terms of two differing perspectives on the relationship between changes in religious beliefs and mental well-being across education level after stressful life events (deprivation compensation versus enhanced resources). Taken together, this study contributes to knowledge about the social patterning (and influence) of beliefs about divine control and how changes in these beliefs may influence the mental health of individuals dealing with specific challenging circumstances.