Social Media and Spirituality: Correlation Study

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The authors implemented a quantitative research design where the participants were taken into a psychology lab and given a questionnaire to fill out. The aim of the study was to find out whether immersion in social media sites has replaced strong religious commitment and spiritual serenity leading to low psychological adjustments (Wood et al., 2016). The independent variable is social media intrusion, and the dependent variables are stress, anxiety, and depression. The mediator variables are religious commitment and spiritual well-being (self-efficacy, life scheme) (Wood et al., 2016).

The authors implement correlation to find out the relationship between social media sites and low psychological adjustments.

Table 1.0: Correlations between the variables

Social media Intrusion Religious Commitment Spiritual well-being Self-efficacy Life scheme Depression Anxiety Stress
Social media Intrusion  -0.6 -0.20** -.29** -.11 0.18* .21** .30**
Religious Commitment   .16* 0.7 .22** -.10 -.06 -.01
Spiritual well-being    0.90** .94** -.60** -.46** -.38**
Self-efficacy     .69** -.56** -.51** -.44**
Life scheme      -0.54** -.36** -.28**
Depression       .61** .60**
Anxiety        .66**
Stress        
*p <.05.
** p <.01.

Using correlation is the best choice because it shows the association between the variables and how the variables are associated with each other to bring about a significant effect (Komaroff, 2020). In this research, the intrusion of social media is significantly positively associated with stress, anxiety, and depression. The intrusion of social media is significantly negatively correlated with self-efficacy and spiritual well-being (Wood et al., 2016). However, the intrusion of social media is not significantly associated with religious commitment. Life scheme dimensions, self-efficacy, and spiritual well-being are significantly negatively associated with stress, anxiety, and depression (Wood et al., 2016).

The authors included other supporting data for this research, and they are shown below.

Table 2.0: Descriptive for the variables

Variable M (range) SD Cronbachs alpha
Social media Intrusion 29.13 (8-53) 10.75 .85
Religious Commitment 30.31 (10-50) 10.71 .94
Spiritual well-being 48.06 (12-60) 9.63 .92
Self efficacy 23.90 (6-30) 4.65 .86
Life scheme 24.16 (6-30) 5.81 .89
Depression 3.65 (0-17) 3.48 .83
Anxiety 4.82 (0-20) 3.76 .73
Stress 6.93 (0-17) 3.87 .76

Table 3.0: Self-efficacy as a mediator in the association between social media intrusion and stress

Outcome Variable: stress ² t R2 ”R2
Block 1
Age
-1.7 -2.62 .112
Sex (0 = male; 1 = female) -28 4.27**
Block 2
Social media intrusion
.23 3.30** .158 .046
Block 3
Self-efficacy
-.36 -5.70** .276 .118
Note: N = 204.
**p <.01 ( p =.01).
*p <.05.

Table 4.0: Spiritual well-being as a mediator in the association between social media intrusion and stress

Outcome Variable: stress ² t R2 ”R2
Block 1
Age
-1.7 -2.62 .112
Sex (0 = male; 1 = female) -28 4.27**
Block 2
Social media intrusion
.23 3.30** .158 .046
Block 3
Spiritual well-being
-.36 -5.24** .260 .102
Note: N = 204.
**p <.01 ( p =.01).
*p <.05.

The studys result is a stand-alone because the results add to the existing statistical knowledge and insights to the correlation. Furthermore, the results show how the structure of exchangeability cab be achieved among the predictor variables (de Winter et al., 2016). The authors did not include the effect sizes.

References

de Winter, J., Gosling, S., & Potter, J. (2016). Comparing the Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients across distributions and sample sizes: A tutorial using simulations and empirical data. Psychological Methods, 21(3), 273-290.

Komaroff, E. (2020). Relationships between p-values and Pearson correlation coefficients, type 1 error, and effect size errors under a true null hypothesis. Journal of statistical theory and Practice, 14(3).

Wood, M., Center, H., & Parenteau, S. (2016). Social media addiction and psychological adjustment: religiosity and spirituality in the age of social media. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 19(9), 972-983.

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