ISSN 0033-2941

Psychological Reports, 2011, 108, 1, 54-58. © Psychological Reports 2011

DOI 10.2466/07.17.PR0.108.1.54-58

SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING AND RELIGIOSITY IN EGYPTIAN COLLEGE STUDENTS1

AHMED M. ABDEL-KHALEK

Kuwait University

Summary.—A sample of 224 Egyptian college students (101 men, 123 women) was recruited. Their ages ranged from 17 to 29 years (M = 18.9, SD = 1.5). They re-sponded to the Arabic versions of the Oxford Happiness Inventory, the Love of Life Scale, and the Satisfaction with Life Scale, as well as five separate single-item self-rating scales assessing physical health, mental health, happiness, satisfaction, and religiosity. All correlations between the measures and rating scales of subjec-tive well-being and religiosity were statistically significant and positive, the larg-est between satisfaction and religiosity. Only one factor was retained in principal components factor analysis of the correlation matrix and labeled “Well-being and religiosity.” It was concluded that religious persons in the present sample reported higher subjective well-being.

The last few decades have witnessed a surge of research interest in the relations of religiosity and measures of subjective well-being, including mental and physical health, happiness, and satisfaction with life, among others (Levin & Chatters, 1998; Chatters, 2000; Koenig, McCullough, & Larson, 2001; Ferris, 2002; Hill & Pargament, 2003). Most of this published research has been carried out with Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking sam-ples and ethnic minority populations within English-speaking countries (Koeing, et al., 2001). Cross-cultural studies are few (Furnham & Cheng, 1999), particularly Arab samples; however, a growing number of research papers with Arabic-speaking participants, recruited from Kuwait, has been published recently (Al-Kandari, 2003; Baroun, 2006; Abdel-Khalek, 2006, 2007b, 2008, 2010; Abdel-Khalek & Lester, 2009). Published English-language articles with Egyptian samples are scarce, so the present aim was to extend prior studies with an Egyptian sample to explore the rela-tion of well-being with religiosity. It was found that Egyptian college stu-dents scored much higher than their American counterparts on intrinsic religiosity (Abdel-Khalek & Thorson, 2006). Therefore, it is suitable to ex-plore the associations of religiosity and subjective well-being in this Arab sample, mainly Muslim; positive correlations between these variables and extracting one factor were hypothesized.

MethodA convenience sample of 224 volunteer Egyptian college students en-

1Address correspondence to Ahmed Abdel-Khalek, Department of Psychology, College of Social Sciences, Kuwait University, P. O. Box 68168 Kaifan, Code No. 71962, Kuwait or email (aabdel-khalek@hotmail.com).

SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING AND RELIGIOSITY 55

rolled in Alexandria University, Egypt (101 men, 123 women) was recruit-ed. Their ages ranged from 17 to 29 years (M = 18.9, SD = 1.5). They re-sponded to the measures in small group sessions.

The Arabic versions of the Oxford Happiness Inventory (29 items rat-ed on a 5-point scale; Argyle, Martin, & Lu, 1995), the Love of Life Scale (16 items rated on a 5-point scale; Abdel-Khalek, 2007a), and the Satisfac-tion with Life Scale (5 items rated on a 7-point scale; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin, 1985) were used. In addition, five separate single-item self-rating scales assessed physical health, mental health, happiness, sat-isfaction, and religiosity.2 For each question, anchors were 0: Minimum and 10: Maximum. The participant was instructed to circle a number to estimate his or her global feeling. All questionnaires and self-rating scales showed good reliability and validity (see Table 1).

Results and DiscussionTable 1 presents descriptive statistics for each measure. Sex differenc-

es were significant on the Oxford Happiness Inventory and the self-rat-ings of physical and mental health, favoring men. On the basis of negative association between well-being and anxiety, this result could be elucidat-ed by previously observed significantly higher mean scores on anxiety and neuroticism among women (Abdel-Khalek, 2000, 2009a). However, women obtained higher mean scores on the Satisfaction with Life Scale than did the men. It is probable that, in comparison with men, women in the present study felt less happy, but their responses could be described as “Al-hamdu-li-Allah”, i.e., thank God. This would be consistent within pa-triarchal, collectivistic and traditional Arab societies. Of course, subjective well-being is a multifaceted, multidimensional construct, and it would be better to do a follow-up study to assess different aspects of this construct.

Table 2 presents the Pearson correlation matrix for the total sample. All correlations were significant and positive, including those of subjec-tive well-being measures with religiosity. This result is congruent with previous Arabic findings (Al-Kandari, 2003; Baroun, 2006; Abdel-Khalek, 2006, 2007b, 2008, 2010; Abdel-Khalek & Lester, 2007, 2009), as well as the majority of studies reported in Christian countries (e.g., Koenig, et al., 2001). Apparently, religious people in general tend to report well-being, i.e., good physical and mental health, feeling happier, love of life, and sat-

2The wording of these self-rating scales were, respectively, as follows: What is your estima-tion of your physical health in general? What is your estimation of your mental health in general? To what degree do you feel happy in general? To what degree do you feel satisfied with your life in general? and What is your level of religiosity in general?

Validity was considered adequate based on the following correlations: .53 between the rating of physical health and the Somatic Symptoms Inventory, −.51 between the rating of mental health and anxiety, .63 between the rating of happiness and the Oxford Happiness Inventory, .65 between the rating of satisfaction and Satisfaction with Life Scale, and .51 be-tween the rating of religiosity and Intrinsic Religious Motivation.

A. M. ABDEL-KHALEK56

isfaction with life. As expected, the correlations between the measures of subjective well-being were higher than the correlations between well-be-ing and religiosity. Correlations with religiosity ranged from .16 (self-rat-ing of physical health) to .48 (self-rating of satisfaction). The latter relation-ship deserves a comment. The Muslim believes that whatever happens to a person is based on God’s will, and he must comply and become satisfied with this will.

The correlation matrix was factored using a principal components analysis. Employing the Kaiser criterion, i.e., eigenvalue greater than 1.0, only one factor was retained and labeled “Well-being and religiosity” (see Table 2). By and large the name of this factor summarizes the results of the current investigation.

TABLE 1Internal Consistency Reliabilities, Validities, Means, Standard

Deviations, t Tests, and Effect Sizes (d) of Scales

Scale r11a Criterion

ValiditycMen (n = 101) Women (n = 123) t d†M SD M SD

Oxford Happiness .93a .65 85.51 15.26 80.61 15.23 2.40* 0.32Love of Life .91a .78 51.53 10.79 50.67 11.51 0.58Satisfaction with Life .83a .66 19.50 5.85 21.05 5.31 2.08* 0.28Physical Health .76b .53 7.11 1.64 6.58 1.69 2.36* 0.32Mental Health .77b .51 5.80 2.63 5.12 2.16 2.08* 0.28Happiness Rating .85b .63 5.99 2.37 5.67 2.15 1.04Satisfaction Rating .81b .65 5.80 2.68 6.10 2.47 0.87Religiosity .88b .51 6.14 2.42 6.64 2.16 1.58Note.—aCronbach alpha reliability was computed for the first three questionnaires. bThe 1-wk. test-retest reliability was computed for the last five self-rating scales. cSee Footnote 2 for explanation of criteria.*p < .05 (two-tailed). †All effect sizes (d) are small.

TABLE 2Pearson Correlations and Principal Component Factor Loadings For Men and Women (N = 224)

Scale Correlations Factor I

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1. Oxford Happiness .772. Love of Life .64† .733. Satisfaction with Life .55† .46† .744. Physical Health .33† .33† .30† .575. Mental Health .52† .45† .50† .48† .796. Happiness Rating .57† .58† .49† .39† .61† .807. Satisfaction .56† .46† .57† .40† .62† .57† .828. Religiosity .25† .17* .31† .16* .32† .27† .48† .47Eigenvalue 4.18% Variance 52.2*p < .05 (two-tailed). †p < .01 (two-tailed).

SUBJECTIVE WELL-BEING AND RELIGIOSITY 57

Specific limitations must be acknowledged. Foremost among them is the limited age range of the present sample. Moreover, it would be im-portant to use multi-item measures. Further research appears warranted.

Present results confirm religiosity is important in the lives of most of the present sample of Egyptian college students. Psychotherapists should attend to clients’ religiosity in clinical settings. As stated by Abdel-Khalek (2009b), Islamic beliefs and practices may be helpful when integrated into the psychotherapeutic process with Muslims. Islamic traditions contain a very elaborate system of health care (Husain, 1998).

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Accepted November 29, 2010.