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In the 21st century, psychologists have increasingly prioritized culture as foundational for conceptualizing individual, interpersonal, communal, and societal functioning in psychological research, teaching, and practice. As the "deep structure" of culture (Jackson & Meadows, 1991), worldview has been theoretically (and etically) explored in the general psychology, personality/social psychology, psychology of religion, and clinical psychology literatures. Yet, to date, very few empirical studies, if any, have emerged to elucidate the role that a distinct religious worldview, Christianity, plays in the psychological health and psychopathology of Christian adults. Thus, using an online archival data set of 274 U.S. Christian adults, the present study empirically examined the role of mental well-being (an etic variable) in mediating the relationship between Christian worldview (an emic variable) and symptoms of psychopathology (i.e., depression, anxiety, and stress; another etic variable). Results confirmed the study hypotheses. Christian worldviewfwith Theology, Epistemology, Anthropology, Axiology, and Teleology subscales) was positively and weakly linked to mental well-being and negatively and weakly linked to symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Mental well-being was also negatively and moderately inked to symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Finally, mental well-being mediated the relationship between Christian worldview and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. These results are explored in the context of the role that Christian worldview plays in psychotherapy with Christian clients, as are study limitations and future research directions.
In the last several decades, psychologists have increasingly prioritized culture as foundational for conceptualizing the intersection between individual, interpersonal, communal, and societal functioning in psychological research, teaching, and practice (Clauss-Ehlers et al., 2019). As the "deep structure" of culture (Jackson & Meadows, 1991), worldview can be succinctly defined as an amalgam of untestable assumptions, often implicit and outside of awareness, that people have about God, reality, knowledge acquisition, values, humanity, the meaning/purpose of life, cultural and/ or religious practices, and so forth (Knabb et al., 2022; Koltko-Rivera, 2004). To date, worldview-as a core component for making sense of the influence of culture and/or religion on psychological functioning-has been theoretically (and etically, meaning from an outsider and global perspective) explored in the general psychology (Koltko-Rivera, 2004), personality/ social psychology (Johnson et al., 2011), psychology of religion (Hall & Hill, 2019), and clinical (Richards & Bergin, 1997) literatures. However, thus far,...