Undergraduate Honors Projects – 1999-2000

Pre-existing questionnaire data, from Oregon Research Institute’s (ORI) SMOFAM project, from 274 participants for the 1996-1997-assessment year (T-10), were examined for relationships between relationship discord, depression, and religiosity. Religiosity was defined as religious belief and religious activity. For the purpose of this study, altruism and social support were also associated with religious activity. Hence, there were four factors, along with general religiosity, that were examined: religious belief, religious activity, altruism, and social support. The objective was to determine if a relationship exists between reduced incidence of depression and the four factors mentioned above, within discordant intimate relationships. This research was deemed important for three reasons: (a) the high incidence of co-morbid marital discord and depression found in much of the recent research, as well as in the present study, (b) religiosity, altruism, and social support have been associated with both relationship satisfaction and depression, (c) there is little research to be found in this area. It was hypothesized that religiosity, in general, would be significantly correlated with depression regardless of relationship satisfaction. Further it was hypothesized that altruism, social support, religious activity, and religious belief would all be found to be significant predictors for depression scores regardless of relationship satisfaction. Finally, it was thought that religious belief would be found to be the least predictive and altruism the greatest predictor for depression scores regardless of relationship satisfaction. The hypothesis regarding the relationship between general religiosity and depression was not supported, with the exception that a significant positive relationship was found between religiosity and depression within discordant relationships. The hypothesis that altruism, social support, religious activity, and religious belief would all have predictive value for depression scores as well as the hypothesis for the ordering of predictive ability of altruism and religious belief remained unsupported as well. An interesting significant interaction was found between relationship satisfaction and religious activity. Within discordant relationships, the incidence of depression was high for subjects with high religious activity, while the incidence of depression was low for those with low religious activity. Within satisfying relationships, the incidence of depression was low regardless of religious activity. One possible explanation for these findings is that people in discordant relationships and are depressed are searching for a solution to their problems by participating in religious activities and have yet to find relief.