A Study on Relationships of Spirituality and Personal and Social Identity Orientation with Psychological Distress

Spirituality is a set of beliefs in the existence of supreme power, awareness about the meaning of life, and a sense of interconnectedness with all living creatures.  Individual’s personal identity is his own outlook that he/she creates about himself. Whereas, Social identity is a part of individual’s self concept which he/she creates on the basis of membership of relevant social group. Psychological distress refers to the symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress which are the indicator of debilitated mental health. The present study aims to examine the relationships of spirituality and personal and social identity orientation with symptoms of psychological distress like depression, anxiety and stress. Daily Spiritual Experience Scale, Aspects of Identity Questionnaire-IV, and Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 were administrated on 200 participants (males=100 and females=100) aged 18-65 years. Correlation and stepwise multiple regression analysis was conducted. The findings of correlation analysis indicated that spirituality and personal and social identity orientation were significantly and negatively correlated with symptoms of psychological distress. The regression analysis revealed that spirituality and social identity orientation emerged as significant predictor for the symptoms of psychological distress. Spirituality negatively and significantly accounted 36% variance for depression, 33% variance for anxiety and 39% variance for stress. Moreover, social identity orientation negatively and significantly accounted 5% variance for depression, 2% variance for anxiety, and 4% variance for stress. On the basis of the results, it can be concluded that spirituality and identity orientation work as defender against psychological distress.