Analysis of the Research Methods
The first step was to pick a sample size after which the participants were asked to fill in their data. The first set of data from the participant is referred to as the baseline assessment. The final assessment, which would then be compared against the first assessment so as to obtain the results of the study has been referred to as the follow-up assessment. The participants were awarded incentives to motivate them to undertake the study. The average age of the participants was 20.7 years. Since the study had two ends, 53 participants (27 male and 35 female) were assigned to RTC whereas 52 (27 male and 32 female) were assigned to CTC. Five parameters were measured during the research.
The depressive symptoms were measured using the Beck Depression Inventory - II (BDI-II). This is a test that checks on one’s attitudes and tries to identify his/her depression symptoms. The test was administered during the baseline and final assessments. The reliability used for the sample size was 0.85.
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Emotional Intelligence (EI) was measured using the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) which is a standardized document containing 30 questions that measure EI to help determine one’s emotional abilities. The reliability used for this test was 0.88. The test was administered during the baseline and final assessments.
Religiousness was measured on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being not religious at all and 5 being extremely religious. It was used as a controlling variable and was only collected during the baseline assessment.
Trauma severity was measured using the Impact of Event Scale (IES), a questionnaire that measures how distressed one is after a traumatic event. This one had the highest reliability level at 0.94. This piece of data was collected during the baseline assessment and used also used as a controlling variable.
The demographic and background information of the participants was collected with the year in which they experienced the said traumatic event required. The time difference from the date collected and the date during which the information was being handed is referred to as the time elapsed since trauma and was used as a controlling variable.
Four analyses were made for the conclusion to be drawn. The first is the random assignment and manipulation check which was done to determine how effective the random assignment was. To do this, the researchers checked whether RTC participant used more Christian words as compared to CTC participants. A significant difference was reflected with the p-value recorded as 0.01. The second analysis was the associations among many study variables at baseline. The BDI-II and IES-R had a positive correlation with a p-value less than 0.001 whereas they both negatively correlated with TEIQue with the p-value being less than 0.001. The third analysis, which is the main effects analysis, which modelled controlled variables such as age, gender, time lapsed since trauma, self-rated religiousness, EI, the severity of trauma, and the depressive symptoms during baseline. The p-value of BDI-II at follow up was less than 0.001. The final analysis is the moderation analyses which involves product terms. The analysis aims at studying how treatment condition and main study variables interact. The outcome of the analyses was that the interactions were insignificant with the p-value occurring to be greater than 0.24. The two-way interaction was further analyzed on its engagement with experimental condition. The analysis showed that TEIQue and IES had a significant interaction with a beta value of 0.418 and a p-value of 0.01. The plot of these interactions is shown below:
From the figure above, the slope for high trauma severity is obtained as 0.02, which is way higher than zero. A second graph was plotted based on the interactive effect of EI and severity of trauma on the symptoms that the patients exhibited at follow up in the CTC. The plot is as shown below. From
One major limitation of this study is there is a possibility that if some of the participants in the sample were heterogeneous, then the RTC side would be ineffective since most of the participants would have their reactions negatively provoked. One assumption, therefore, is that all participants were homogenous.
Discussion
During baseline, the p-value of BDI-II was predicted to be less than 0.001. This was confirmed to be true after the experiment. The hypothesis stated before the experiment was found to be true for patients that had experienced severe trauma. What is more interesting about the result is that individuals who have fewer resources, materials, or property tend to turn to religion after a traumatic experience more often than those who have a lot of material possession. There being fewer material related to the study of the relationship between religion and EI. Furthermore, the study indicates that the relationship between religious leaders and emotional intelligence is negative.
This research opens up doors to other research topics. For example, it created the need for additional studies that will help decipher the differential effects that can possibly occur between religion and perspective taking on adaptive trauma processing. One certain thing that clearly manifests itself from this study is that religion acts as a good resource for individuals who have gone through psychological trauma as spiritual beliefs affect encourage adaptive trauma processing especially individuals who have low emotional intelligence. More studies can be carried out on how to the negative side effects of trauma can be effectively reduced through religion.
