Spiritual Practices and Dispositional Optimism in an Underprivileged Population

Gonzalo Arrieta, Alejandro Cid () and Maria Mercedes Ponce de Leon

No 1709, Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers from Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo.

Abstract: Optimism seems to foster the ability to manage adverse situations better - a finding especially relevant for disadvantaged populations. Employing a unique sample from a small underprivileged village, we study the association between spiritual practices and dispositional optimism. The village belongs to a developing country that is, by far, the most secular country in Latin America: this makes particularly interesting exploring the role of spiritual practices in this context. We find that spiritual practices are positively associated with higher optimism, measured by the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R): those who practice spirituality, score, on average, 14.4 percentage points higher on the LOT-R than those who do not. And this association seems to be especially robust in the case of the poor and less educated: those with spiritual practices score 20 percentage points higher on the LOT-R. Thus, the role that spiritual practices may play in dispositional optimism in disadvantaged populations deserves more attention.

Keywords: Dispositional optimism; spiritual practices; LOT-R; hope; religion; happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Working Paper: Spiritual Practices and Dispositional Optimism in an Underprivileged Population (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mnt:wpaper:1709

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