The role of spirituality in psychological stress, insecurity and loneliness among tribals students: A comparative study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm.2025.v10.n10.008Keywords:
Spirituality, Psychological Stress, Insecurity, Loneliness, Tribal Students, Cultural ResilienceAbstract
Spirituality has been identified as an important factor in psychological well-being among students, especially in culturally diverse societies. Nevertheless, the tribal students in India are subjected to several psychological issues such as stress, insecurity, and loneliness because of the fast modernization, cultural displacement, and the lack of culturally sensitive support structures. This paper will seek to investigate the asset of spirituality in mediating and forecasting mental strain, insecurity, and isolation among tribal and non-tribal students in Godda district of Jharkhand. A total of 150 students (75 tribal and 75 non-tribal) were used as a cross-sectional, comparative, and quantitative research design. Standardized scales were used, such as the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), Security-Insecurity Inventory and UCLA Loneliness Scale. The t-tests, correlation, regression, moderation, and SEM statistical analyses demonstrated that spirituality was a negative predictor of stress, insecurity, and loneliness (p < 0.05). Spirituality was found to play a protective role in tribal students because they were found to have considerably increased spirituality and decreased psychological distress compared with non-tribal students. The paper concludes that religiousness is a cultural resilience factor that improves emotional balance and belongingness. The future studies should work on culturally based, spiritually inculcated mental health interventions in order to assist indigenous and marginalized students in post-secondary education.
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This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).