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Religious and Spiritual Practices: Association with Dispositional Optimism in an Underprivileged Population in
Alejandro Cid1, Charles E Stokes2, Gonzalo Arrieta3
1Universidad de Montevideo, 2544 Prudencio de Pena st, 11600, Montevideo, Uruguay. acid@um.edu.uy.
Abstract:
Optimism seems to foster the ability to manage adverse situations better-a finding especially relevant for disadvantaged populations. Employing a unique sample from a small underprivileged village, we studied the association between religious/spiritual practices and dispositional optimism. The village belongs to a developing country that is, by far, the most secular country in Latin America; this makes it particularly interesting for exploring the role of religious/spiritual practices in this context. We found that these practices were positively associated with higher optimism, measured by the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R): those who practice spirituality, score, on average, 14.4 percentage points higher on the LOT-R than those who did not. This association seems to be especially robust in the case of the poor and less educated: those with religious/spiritual practices score 20 percentage points higher on the LOT-R. Thus, the role that these practices may play in dispositional optimism in disadvantaged populations deserves more attention.
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