Inna Reddy Edara

Religious experience is inherently affective, yet the mechanisms by which religious belief relates to psychological ‎outlook remain under-specified. This study tests a three-factor model of emotions toward God as affective ‎mechanisms that mediate and/or moderate links between religiosity and dispositional outlook in Taiwanese ‎undergraduates. A sample of 551 students completed validated measures of multidimensional religiosity (CRSi-14), ‎emotions toward God (EtG; good, bad, moral), and dispositional optimism/pessimism (LOT-R). Confirmatory factor ‎analysis supported the three-factor EtG structure. Hayes PROCESS models examined mediation (Model 4) and ‎moderation (Model 1). Mediation analyses showed that good emotions significantly mediated the positive ‎association between religiosity and optimism (indirect β=0.32, 95% Confidence Interval; CI [0.13, 0.51]), whereas ‎bad emotions fully mediated the religiosity-pessimism link (indirect β=0.15, 95% CI [0.048, 0.254]); moral ‎emotions did not mediate either outcome. Moderation tests indicated that good emotions moderated the ‎religiosity-pessimism relationship (β interaction = -0.282, p=.019), such that religiosity related more strongly to ‎reduced pessimism when good emotions were lower; no significant moderation emerged for bad or moral emotions. ‎Findings advance basic affective theory by specifying valenced religious emotions as distinct mechanisms, and ‎they inform applied mental-health practice by identifying emotion-focused targets (amplifying “good” emotions, ‎addressing “bad” emotions) through which religiosity may shape youth outlook‎.

This study applies discrete mathematical modeling to examine patterns of teacher satisfaction and well-being using data from the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), which included 261,426 teachers across 48 education systems. Latent profile analysis based on nine indicators: self-efficacy, job satisfaction (overall, profession, and environment), emotional well-being, workload stress, disciplinary climate, professional engagement, and collaboration; identified three distinct profiles: High (34.2%), Moderate (45.6%), and Low (20.2%). Welch’s t-tests revealed significant gender disparities across most indicators, with female teachers reporting higher workload stress (M = 9.30 vs. 8.99, p < .001) and lower emotional well-being (M = 9.43 vs. 9.19, p < .001). Country-level ANOVA results indicated statistically significant differences across all nine measures (p < .001). Teachers in Finland, Japan, and South Korea reported higher levels of emotional well-being and professional satisfaction, while Brazil, Mexico, and the Czech Republic reported lower levels. A Gaussian graphical model was then constructed to explore interrelations among indicators. The network revealed strong partial correlations between job satisfaction and emotional well-being (r = 0.24), and between workload and emotional exhaustion (r = –0.21). Centrality analysis highlighted overall job satisfaction and emotional well-being as the most influential constructs, serving as key bridges and hubs of connectivity. These findings demonstrate the utility of combining latent profile classification with graph-theoretic modeling, providing a novel framework for analyzing large-scale teacher data through discrete mathematical procedures.

Based on the current research trends and academic applications, which suggest that emotional intelligence can be learned and enhanced through education and training, this academic project coded and analyzed the emotional patterns of 46 undergraduate students who attended an 18-week academic course on emotional management. A paired-sample t-test showed a significant increase from pre-course to post-course emotional intelligence scores, suggesting the importance of designing an academic course in formal educational settings. Analysis of students’ emotions journals indicated a total of 18 negative emotions, with the emotion of irritability occurring most frequently, followed by anger and anxiety. Loneliness, impatience, and guilt were some of the least felt negative emotions. The triggers for the arousal of negative emotions spanned family matters, interpersonal relations, academics, and communication skills, among others. The majority of the students used cognitive-behavioral and family systems theories in understanding and analyzing their emotional patterns. Students used various strategies to deal with the negative emotions, including developing communication skills, talking with family and friends, better time management, improving self-efficacy, cultivating a positive attitude, engaging in physical activities, etc. These results are discussed in this paper and the possible implications for practical purposes and further research are suggested.

Religions are a set of beliefs, attitudes, and practices about transcendence. They are formed by complex social and cultural rituals and customs. Given that religion is also vital to the Indigenous Peoples, this study employed the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS) to measure and understand the nuances of the religiosity of the Indigenous youth of Cordillera, also known as Igorots, in the Philippines. The Cordilleran youth’s religiosity is particularly interesting to the researchers because their autochthonous religion is marked by a cosmology that includes hundreds of deities and elaborate rituals accompanying personal and social events. Data collected from 151 university students showed that Cordilleran youth are highly religious, and those living in rural areas are more religious than the younger participants. The Cordilleran youth strongly prefer private practice and scored high in the ideology dimension of CRS. They tend to devote themselves to transcendence in their personal space through individualized activities and rituals. This study also found that the religiosity of the select Cordilleran youth was ambivalent, defined as the coexistence of different ideas or feelings in the mind or a single context. It shows the inter-religiosity of the Indigenous youth as expressed in the engagement of religious practices. This paper discussed these significant results and explored their implications for the Indigenous Peoples and the Cordilleran youth.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented effect on many areas of people’s lives all over the world, including in the area of education. Many educational institutions must un-preparedly transition from physical classes to distance learning modalities, affecting both the students and teachers. Given that the teachers are confronted with so many challenges, leading to their increased stress and mental health issues, this research project investigated the role of religiosity in the contentment of a sample of 296 teachers in the Philippines, mediated by the effects of resilience, optimism, and well-being. Bivariate correlation analysis showed that religiosity, resilience, optimism, and well-being were positively and significantly correlated with each other, while contentment was positively and significantly correlated with optimism and well-being. Regression analysis indicated no direct significant association between religiosity and contentment. Mediation analyses suggested that optimism partially mediated the impact of religiosity on well-being, whereas well-being fully mediated the impact of religiosity on contentment and the impact of optimism on contentment. Lastly, the measurement model indicated a significant path from religiosity to contentment through optimism and well-being. These significant results suggest that, while facing adversities in life, the teachers in the Philippines might use religiosity and its relevant dimensions as positive coping mechanisms to face the academic challenges triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and thus derive contentment that is mediated by the positive effects of optimism and well-being.

Given the importance of emotions in human life and the necessity of managing one’s emotions, this research project conducted an 18 week course on emotional management for a group of undergraduate students, investigated the differences in emotional intelligence (EI) levels before and after the course, and assessed EI’s effect on selected subjective wellness and psychological distress variables. The study indicated many significant results. Most importantly, the comparison of the pre-course and post-course EI scores indicated that the EI skills and competencies could be learned and enhanced through formal education. Additionally, there were also significant regression coefficients of pre-course and post-course EI scores on both subjective wellness and psychological distress variables. The significant results endorse that EI knowledge, skills, and competencies could indeed be enhanced through formal education. In particular, the understanding of EI could help the educationists and helping professionals in assessing people’s level of EI, designing relevant courses, and raising the impact of EI on both overall wellness and psychological distress.

One hard fact of COVID-19 is the uncertainty of all things. Anchoring on the assumption that the religiosity of an individual has a profound impact on their emotions, resilience, and wellness, this study investigated the levels of the centrality of religiosity, emotions towards God, resilience, and wellness among 399 Taiwanese university students. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, factor analysis, group comparisons, multiple regression, and mediation analysis. Findings showed that most of the participants were religious. Furthermore, the 16 emotions towards God were successfully factored into three distinct sub-groups, namely: pleasant, unpleasant, and moral valence, which were later found to be quite related to Asian religions. More importantly, the results suggested that the resiliency of an individual can be attributed to their belief in the existence of God or the Divine, while the wellness indicators of security and satisfaction were related to one’s religiosity. Lastly, structural equation modeling showed that resilience fully mediated the relationship between the ideology dimension of religiosity and the security and satisfaction component of wellness. In addition to discussing these significant results, this paper also included some implications of the study results, particularly the importance of religiosity and emotions toward God or the Divine in sustaining resilience and promoting wellness, especially in the context of crisis, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.

This study validated three versions of the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRSi-7, -14, and -20), which propose an adequate assessment tool for the diversity of religious belief systems co-existing in Taiwan’s society. The sample (N = 331) was drawn from the selected undergraduate university students of the country. Descriptive statistics and Cronbach’s alpha values were calculated for the five subscales (ideology, intellect, experience, private and public practice) of the Centrality of Religiosity Scale. The factor structure of the interreligious Centrality of Religiosity Scale was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The current study utilized the CRSi-14 model 3 as the basis for later analysis. All items have loaded significantly in the different subscales with internal consistency within the acceptable values. Findings show that the selected Taiwanese youth are religious.