An investigation of the effect of religiousness, patience, and hope on eudaimonic well-being

The aim of this study was to develop a structural model for the explanation of eudaimonic well-being based on the components of religiousness and the mediating roles of patience and hope. The research method is correlational and the participants were 527 students at Shiraz University who were selected through multi-stage cluster random sampling method and filled out the religiousness questionnaire (Glock and Stark, 1965), Patience scale (Khormaei, Farmani, and Soltani, 2014 B), and eudaimonic well-being questionnaire (Waterman et al, 2010). Reliability and validity of the scales, for use in the Iranian culture have been at satisfactory level. SPSS-21 and AMOS-21 softwares were used for path analysis. The results of structural equation modeling showed that the proposed model is a good fit with the data for study and the direct effects of religiousness on eudaimonic well-being, religiousness on the patience and hope, and patience and hope on the eudaimonic well-being were confirmed. The model also showed that the indirect effect of religiousness mediated by hope and patience on eudaimonic well-being is greater than its direct effect. That is religious rituals and believes accompanied with hope and patience make youth’s life better. Another finding of this study was that the beta value of belief (86/0=β) and emotional (80/0=β) religiousness were greater than those value of outcome (50/0=β) and ritual (28/0=β) dimensions of religiousness. Thus, it is suggested to emphasize on internalizing and religious feelings, more than other aspects of religiousness.