Social and religious correlates of life meaningfulness in elderly people

Peter Halama
Stanislava Semancová

Abstract

The study focused on the social and religious correlates of life meaningfulness in elderly people. 180 respondents were administered Life Meaningfulness Scale, Social Support Survey MOS, Swedish Religious Orientation Scale and Religious Salience Scale. Besides these, demographic data related to the type of respondents’ household were collected. The results showed that social support and type of household significantly related to life meaningfulness, and direction of the relationships suggested that social relationships were important source of life meaningfulness. On the other hand, religiosity did not show clear relations with meaningfulness, because extrinsic religiosity had only weak negative relationship with meaningfulness and intrinsic religiosity and religious salience did not correlate with meaningfulness. Analysis of moderation effect of gender and type of household on the relationship between life meaningfulness and religiosity showed that intrinsic religiosity had positive relationship only in males and this relationship is higher if respondent lived in the household with relatives.

(Fulltext in Slovak)

Keywords

life meaningfulness, social support, religiosity

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