RELIGIOSITY & DEPRESSION, STRESS & ANXIETY 1

The Relationship between Religiosity and Depression, Stress & Anxiety

Afsheen Zehra, Emaan Hasan

Department of Psychology,

University of Karachi
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Abstract

In this modern era of science & technology, Social media has advanced & it’s platforms

have replicated, each one a changed, modified version of the previously most used platform.

Nowadays, Instagram is a very popular social media platform, usually used young adolescents &

adults. It is a way to connect with one’s friends & family, by sharing recent photos and videos on

the platform. The aim of this study is to investigate the correlation between frequent Instagram

use and self-esteem in young women. This method will be useful in determining whether

women's self-esteem suffers as a result of their frequent use of Instagram. The study will be

carried on 30 female student participants from different disciplines of university of Karachi,

ranging from ages 18-25 years. The inclusion criteria will be that they use Instagram regularly

and are following celebrities and influencers on their personal accounts. Two questionnaire tools

will be implemented: The Rosenberg's Self-esteem Scale by Rosenberg, and The Facebook

Intensity Scale (modified for use with Instagram) by Ellison. The hypothesis is that

prolonged/frequent use of social media specifically Instagram, will have a negative impact on

self-esteem.
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INTRODUCTION

In the current era we are encountering a lot of psychological issues; stress, anxiety and

depression being the most common ones. Stress is one of the commonly experienced

psychological condition which is defined by a relationship between the person and the way he is

perceiving the environment where his own limits are exceeded and ultimately his mental health

is at risk (Lazarus & Folkman , 1984).Moving on, anxiety is initiated by the element of fear in

which a person anticipates excessively about the future which leads to a complex psychological,

emotional and behavioral inappropriate response, to eliminate the expected danger (Lahousen

and Kapfhammer, 2018). Furthermore, depression is a constant state of sadness and loss of

interest which may cause feelings like emptiness, irritable mood and affects proper everyday life

functioning. (Salik & Marwaha , 2022) (Ormel , Kessler & Schoevers ,2019). Depression,

anxiety and stress are the elements which cause problems and impairments in the lives of

youngster as well adults. In teens and students, anxiety and depression was reported as an

overlapping issue which greatly influenced their academic performance as well. (Khesht-Masjedi

, Shokrgozar, Abdollahi, Habibi, Asghari, Ofoghi, & Pazhooman, 2019)

Now when we talk about religion and religiosity, there are a lot of views and dimensions

to discuss this element. It incorporates multiple emotional, cognitive, motivational and

behavioural aspects. Religiosity is the extent to which a person believes and give regard to the

God ,practically perform religious rituals and practice the teachings of the particular religion

(Iddagoda and Opatha ,2018). This is something practiced by one’s own will and not by force.
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Literature Review

Depression, anxiety & stress are the most common manifestations of psychological problems in

the general population of all ages, especially the youth. They encounter many problems in their

growing age, the transition from teenage to young adulthood, summed up with theory academic

and career tensions, family/ interpersonal issues, financial barriers, problems with partners etc.

These people are struggling to enter their professional lives, and build a good career path and

polish their skills. Evidence from a recent literature indicated the negative implications of a

stressful environment on a student’s academic achievements, physical health as well as his

psychosocial wellbeing (Ahmed et al. 2009).

Although previous research has provided conflicting evidence about the relationship between

religiosity and mental health problems, like stress, anxiety & depression, but a recent study

shows, that investment in religion and it’s rituals, can actually become a protective and defensive

mechanism against mental health problems (Blay, Batista, Andreoli, & Gastal, 2008 ; Blazer,

2010 ; Hayward, Owen, Koenig, Steffens, & Payne, 2012 ; King et al., 2007 ; Koenig,

2007 , 2009 ; Law & Sbarra, 2009 ; Smith, McCullough, & Poll, 2003). Evidence also suggests

that people involved in religious activities may not only be able to recover from mental illnesses

(Webb, Charbonneau, McCann, & Gayle, 2011 ), but also do so quickly with reduced

hospitalization period.  (Contrada et al., 2004 ).

The role of religion in people’s life has seen to become more pronounced with age (Moberg,

2001; Seifert, 2002). Specifically, research suggests that religiosity increases with age, although

participataion in religious activities may decline, due to physical and health issues in the elderly

(Idler et al., 2009; Wink & Dillon, 2002; Krause, 2013). The strength of these religious beliefs
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and attitudes have also seen to become more salient with age (Krause 2008; Moody, 2006;

Sherkat, 2010; Wuthnow, 2010).

Evidence from previous literature suggest that people that are actively involved in religious

activities, rather than just participating due to the burden of obligation or duty, get to internalized

a set of values that helps them combat against depression, and symptoms manifesting

psychological problems (Margetic, 2005; McCullough & Larson, 1999). However, not all studies

suggest a positive relationship to exist between the two correlates, like Freud clainmed religion

to be ‘the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity’ (Freud, 1959), while others too have

argued that ‘no correlation between religion and mental health’ exists (Bergin, 1991). Other

researches have suggested that high levels of personal distress are correlated to increased

religiosity (King & Shafer, 1992).

Further research needs to be done, keeping in mind the cultural context and values of the

population being described in the study, to gain an insight to this concept.

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Methodology

Research Design;

Correlational research method will be employed in order to study the correlation between

religiosity and depression, stress & anxiety in young adults. This approach will be helpful to find

out whether depression and anxiety decreases with increased religiosity.

Sample;

This study will be conducted on 100 students of ages ranging between 18-26 years from

distinctive departments of different faculties of a public sector university in Karachi. The

inclusion criteria will involve the participants who belong to different religions, and sects of the

same religion, majority population being muslims.

Assessment Tools;

1-Self developed demographic questionnaire;

Demographic questions will be asked from the participants to ascertain their gender, age.

2-Mature Religiosty Scale (Schot, Pieper & Uden 2011)

The Rosenberg Self-esteem scale (RSES) is a 16 item scale that is a measure of an individual’s

faith & meaning of life and is suitable to be used both in medical healthcare and pastoral health

care. A three-factor structure could be distinguished, namely, ‘Orientation to higher values out of

a sense of inner freedom’, ‘Trust in God pervades the entire life’, ‘Responsibility for fellow

humans and creation’. All items are answered using a 5 point Likert scale with scores ranging

from strongly disagree (0) to strongly agree (4). The range of possible scores is 16-80, with a

higher score indicating a higher level of religiosity. The original reliability (Cronbach’s Alpha)

of the scale is 0.92.

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3- DASS-21 (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995)

Atotal of 21 items from the original questionnaire, brief version, used in issues of time

constraints in research purposes. All items are answered using a 4 point rating scale ranging from

(0)- Didn’t apply to me at all to (3)-Applied to me very much, or most of the time. The scale has

an original reliability of Cronbach’s alpha of 0.81, 0.89 & 0.78 for the subscales of depression,

anxiety and stress respectively. It was found to have excellent internal consistency,

discriminative, concurrent and convergent validities. The depression and anxiety subscales of

DASS-21 had good correlations with self-rating depression scale and state trait anxiety

inventory.

Procedure:

The participants will be approached & told about our study to gain their verbal & written

(signed) consent. They will be first handed a self-developed demographic questionnaire to assess

factors like their age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity etc. They will then be given The Mature

Religiosity Scale which will immediately be followed by the DASS-21. They will be thanked for

their time and effort.

Ethical Considerations

Approval of the Ethical review board will be taken by the researchers. No participant will be

subjected to any kind of harm by the study procedures & scales that are to be used, full consent

will be taken from every participant prior to the study, dignity of the participants will be

prioritized and confidentiality of the research will be ensured by assigning each participant with

a research ID. Every participant will be given the right to withdraw at any stage of the research

procedure.
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REFERENCES

Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. Springer publishing

company. (135)

Lahousen T, Kapfhammer HP. [Anxiety disorders - clinical and neurobiological aspects].

Psychiatr Danub. 2018 Dec;30(4):479-490. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30439809/

Salik, I., & Marwaha, R. (2022). Electroconvulsive Therapy. In StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30855854/

Ormel, J., Kessler, R. C., & Schoevers, R. (2019). Depression: more treatment but no drop in

prevalence: how effective is treatment? And can we do better?. Current opinion in psychiatry,

32(4), 348–354. https://doi.org/10.1097/YCO.0000000000000505

Khesht-Masjedi, M. F., Shokrgozar, S., Abdollahi, E., Habibi, B., Asghari, T., Ofoghi, R. S., &

Pazhooman, S. (2019). The relationship between gender, age, anxiety, depression, and academic

achievement among teenagers. Journal of family medicine and primary care, 8(3), 799–804.

https://doi.org/10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_103_18

Iddagoda. A and Opatha. H.2018. Religiosity: Towards A Conceptualization and An

Operationalization.Vol 7. 10.4038/sljhrm.v7i1.5637
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APPENDIX A: SELF DEVELOPED DEMOGRAPHIC & CONSENT FORM

RESEARCH ID: ___________

CONSENT FORM

We, the students of Department of Psychology are conducting research on the topic
“Relationship between Instagram Usage & self-esteem” that will require your polite
participation. Kindly read the following details about your rights & fill out the consent form.

I have been briefed about the study by the researcher & I understand my rights as a participant to
their study.

I hereby understand that my details & responses will be kept confidential by the researcher & the
responses will only be used for academic purposes.

I understand that I have a right to withdraw at any stage and I hereby confirm my participation.

SIGNATURE: ______________ RESEARCHER’S SIGNATURE: _________________

DATE: __________________ DATE: ___________________

SELF DEVELOPED DEMOGRAPHIC QUESTIONNAIRE

Fill in the following information about the study participant. Your answers to the following
questions will be kept confidential and will be used for research purposes only.

Your name: ____________________________ (optional)

Your Age: ____________________________

Major Department & Academic Year: _____________________________

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Area of Residence; _________________________________________

1.Do you have a personal Instagram account?

o Yes
o No

If you choose "No", Kindly submit the form & withdraw.

2. What type of content do You usually consume on Instagram?
o Celebrities / influences
o Fashion
o Food blogs
o Sports
o Marketing & brands
o Other; _________________________

3. On average, how long do you consume the content (selected above) on a daily basis;
o 2-4 hours
o 4-8 hours
o 8-12 hours
o 12-16 hours
o 16+ hours

4. Have you gone through any traumatic or depressive event, like the death of a loved one
recently (6 months-1 year)?
o Yes
o No

If yes, please describe the event (optional): _____________________________________

5. Have you been diagnosed with a chronic or terminal illness recently (6 month–1 year)?
o Yes
o No

If yes, please name the illness (optional) _______________________________________

6. How would you describe your family’s financial status?
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o Good
o Normal
o Bad

7. Can you count on your family in times of need?

o Yes
o No
o Maybe

8. Are you generally satisfied with your appearance & body?

o Yes
o No
o Maybe

9. Does your family value you?

o Yes
o No
o Maybe
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APPENDIX B: INSTAGRAM INTENSITY SCALE

INSTRUCTIONS:
Below is a list of statements about your Instagram use. Read each statement and select the
appropriate answer that most describes you. If on phone, please scroll across for all the answers.

Questions Strongly Disagree Neither Agree Strongly

Disagree Agree or Agree
Disagree
1. Instagram is part of my everyday          
activity
2. I am proud to tell people I’m on          
Instagram
3. Instagram has become part of my daily          
routine
4. I feel out of touch when I haven’t          
logged onto Instagram for a while
5. I feel I am part of the Instagram          
community
6. I would be sorry if Instagram shut          
down

7. Approximately how many TOTAL Instagram followers do you have?

o 10 or less
o 11-50
o 51-100
o 101-150
o 152-200
o 201-250
o 251-300
o 301-400
o 400 +
8. In the past week, on average, approximately how much time PER DAY have you spent
actively using Instagram?
___________________
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9. Approximately how many Likes on average does your photo/video receive?

___________________

10. If your photo/video does not receive desired number of Likes do you delete it?
o Yes
o No
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APPENDIX C: ROSENBERG’S SELF ESTEEM SCALE

INSTRUCTIONS:
Below is a list of statements dealing with your general feelings about yourself. Please indicate
the extent to which you agree or disagree with each of the following statements by using the
scale below.

Questions Strongl Agree Disagre Strongly

y Agree e Disagree
1. I feel that I’m a person of worth, at least on an
equal plane with others
2. I feel I have a number of good qualities

3. All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure

4. I am able to do things as well as most people

5. I feel I do not have much to be proud of

6. I take a positive attitude towards myself

7. On the whole, I am satisfied with myself

8. I wish I could have more respect for myself

9. I certainly feel useless at times

10. At times, I think I am no good at all

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