1 - (SYM 147) the Role of Religion, Forgiveness, and Mental Distress in Muslims Living in the United States (MLUS)

Muslims living in the United States (MLUS) frequently face Islamophobia, with experiences of hate crimes and discrimination currently on the rise (Assari & Lankarani, 2017). Not surprisingly, given the current anti-immigrant and Islamophobic climate, research has found that MLUS experience far greater rates of depression, anxiety, and stress, than their non-Muslim counterparts (Amer and Hovey, 2012) and a higher likelihood of suicide attempts (Awaad et al., 2021). Having a stronger religious faith has been found to be associated with better mental health across religious denominations (e.g, Papaleontiou-Louca, 2021; Weisman de Mamani et al. 2021). Forgiveness is a primary tenet of most major religions, including Islam (Warsah, 2020).  Among Christians and Jews, research indicates that practicing forgiveness is associated with better mental health (Heim & Rye, 2008). In the current study we examined whether forgiveness (assessed using the Islamic Forgiveness Attitudes subscale) would also be associated with better mental health (assessed using the Depression Anxiety and Stress scale; DASS-21) in MLUS.  Furthermore, we examined whether greater forgiveness would be one of the mechanisms by which greater Islamic faith (assessed using the Islamic Religious Devotional Behavior subscale) impacts mental health. Using a sample of 59 MLUS, we found that forgiveness was indeed inversely related to mental distress (r = -.40; p < .01), with a medium effect size.¹ Surprisingly however, greater religiousness was not associated with emotional distress (r = .17, p = .22) nor with forgiveness (r = .09; p = .50). When distress was regressed on both forgiveness (b = -.42; p = .001) and religiosity (b =.25, p = .05) only forgiveness predicted distress F(2) = 7.12; p = .01. Thus, while our findings do support the hypothesis that forgiveness is associated with less emotional distress in MLUS, contrary to expectations, greater faith in Islam was not. Religion is a multifaceted construct. To clarify this finding, future research may benefit from breaking Islamic religious components into adaptive and maladaptive elements. Finally, our findings have clinical implications by suggesting that targeting forgiveness attitudes and practices in therapy with MLUS may be one avenue for decreasing the exorbitantly high rates of emotional distress that this population currently experiences.

¹ Patterns were almost identical for the depression, anxiety, and stress subscales, so we combined them using total scores for ease of interpretation.