One hard fact of COVID-19 is the uncertainty of all things. Anchoring on the assumption that the religiosity of an individual has a profound impact on their emotions, resilience, and wellness, this study investigated the levels of the centrality of religiosity, emotions towards God, resilience, and wellness among 399 Taiwanese university students. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, factor analysis, group comparisons, multiple regression, and mediation analysis. Findings showed that most of the participants were religious. Furthermore, the 16 emotions towards God were successfully factored into three distinct sub-groups, namely: pleasant, unpleasant, and moral valence, which were later found to be quite related to Asian religions. More importantly, the results suggested that the resiliency of an individual can be attributed to their belief in the existence of God or the Divine, while the wellness indicators of security and satisfaction were related to one’s religiosity. Lastly, structural equation modeling showed that resilience fully mediated the relationship between the ideology dimension of religiosity and the security and satisfaction component of wellness. In addition to discussing these significant results, this paper also included some implications of the study results, particularly the importance of religiosity and emotions toward God or the Divine in sustaining resilience and promoting wellness, especially in the context of crisis, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented effect on many areas of people’s lives all over the world, including in the area of education. Many educational institutions must un-preparedly transition from physical classes to distance learning modalities, affecting both the students and teachers. Given that the teachers are confronted with so many challenges, leading to their increased stress and mental health issues, this research project investigated the role of religiosity in the contentment of a sample of 296 teachers in the Philippines, mediated by the effects of resilience, optimism, and well-being. Bivariate correlation analysis showed that religiosity, resilience, optimism, and well-being were positively and significantly correlated with each other, while contentment was positively and significantly correlated with optimism and well-being. Regression analysis indicated no direct significant association between religiosity and contentment. Mediation analyses suggested that optimism partially mediated the impact of religiosity on well-being, whereas well-being fully mediated the impact of religiosity on contentment and the impact of optimism on contentment. Lastly, the measurement model indicated a significant path from religiosity to contentment through optimism and well-being. These significant results suggest that, while facing adversities in life, the teachers in the Philippines might use religiosity and its relevant dimensions as positive coping mechanisms to face the academic challenges triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and thus derive contentment that is mediated by the positive effects of optimism and well-being.

Given the importance of emotions in human life and the necessity of managing one’s emotions, this research project conducted an 18 week course on emotional management for a group of undergraduate students, investigated the differences in emotional intelligence (EI) levels before and after the course, and assessed EI’s effect on selected subjective wellness and psychological distress variables. The study indicated many significant results. Most importantly, the comparison of the pre-course and post-course EI scores indicated that the EI skills and competencies could be learned and enhanced through formal education. Additionally, there were also significant regression coefficients of pre-course and post-course EI scores on both subjective wellness and psychological distress variables. The significant results endorse that EI knowledge, skills, and competencies could indeed be enhanced through formal education. In particular, the understanding of EI could help the educationists and helping professionals in assessing people’s level of EI, designing relevant courses, and raising the impact of EI on both overall wellness and psychological distress.

Religions are a set of beliefs, attitudes, and practices about transcendence. They are formed by complex social and cultural rituals and customs. Given that religion is also vital to the Indigenous Peoples, this study employed the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRS) to measure and understand the nuances of the religiosity of the Indigenous youth of Cordillera, also known as Igorots, in the Philippines. The Cordilleran youth’s religiosity is particularly interesting to the researchers because their autochthonous religion is marked by a cosmology that includes hundreds of deities and elaborate rituals accompanying personal and social events. Data collected from 151 university students showed that Cordilleran youth are highly religious, and those living in rural areas are more religious than the younger participants. The Cordilleran youth strongly prefer private practice and scored high in the ideology dimension of CRS. They tend to devote themselves to transcendence in their personal space through individualized activities and rituals. This study also found that the religiosity of the select Cordilleran youth was ambivalent, defined as the coexistence of different ideas or feelings in the mind or a single context. It shows the inter-religiosity of the Indigenous youth as expressed in the engagement of religious practices. This paper discussed these significant results and explored their implications for the Indigenous Peoples and the Cordilleran youth.

Many research studies from the perspective of both psychological and religious models have indicated a significant relationship between spirituality and forgiveness. The current study included the cultural aspect in these existing models and investigated the mediating role of individual-level individualism-collectivism (IND-COL) in the relationship between spirituality and forgiveness. The data from 637 participants were analysed for mediational effects and the results indicated significant partial mediational effects for both IND and COL. Structural equation modelling analysis also indicated that spirituality’s relation to forgiveness is structurally mediated by cultural orientation of IND-COL.

This study validated three versions of the Centrality of Religiosity Scale (CRSi-7, -14, and -20), which propose an adequate assessment tool for the diversity of religious belief systems co-existing in Taiwan’s society. The sample (N = 331) was drawn from the selected undergraduate university students of the country. Descriptive statistics and Cronbach’s alpha values were calculated for the five subscales (ideology, intellect, experience, private and public practice) of the Centrality of Religiosity Scale. The factor structure of the interreligious Centrality of Religiosity Scale was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. The current study utilized the CRSi-14 model 3 as the basis for later analysis. All items have loaded significantly in the different subscales with internal consistency within the acceptable values. Findings show that the selected Taiwanese youth are religious.