On the morning of October 8, 2016, Hurricane Matthew made landfall near Cape Romain, South Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane (National Weather Service, n.d.). It was the first hurricane to make U.S. landfall in South Carolina since 2004 (South Carolina State Climatology Office, 2016). Because Hurricane Matthew had decimated parts of the Caribbean earlier that week (bringing torrential downpours and 145mph winds and killing over 330 people), its approach triggered a massive evacuation of the entire South Carolina coast. Upon making U.S. landfall, Hurricane Matthew brought 75mph winds, 8 to 20 inches of rain, severe storm surge, and record-breaking flooding to areas of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Florida (Hanna, Park, & Almasy, 2016; National Weather Service, n.d.; South Carolina State Climatology Office, 2016). In these areas, it left more than 2 million people without power (Hanna et al., 2016), caused $10.4 billion in damage, and resulted in 49 deaths (National Centers for Environmental Information [NCEI], 2018).

In 2016, there were 15 U.S. natural disasters that caused over $1 billion in damages, which (at that point) tied 2011 for the highest number of U.S. billion-dollar disasters since 1980 history (NCEI, 2018). (There were 16 U.S. billion-dollar disasters in 2017.) Indeed, natural disasters are increasing in their frequency, intensity, and impact, and unfortunately, it seems this trend is likely to continue (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies [IFRC], 2016; National Centers for Environmental Information [NCEI], 2018; United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction [UNISDR], 2015).

In the wake of natural disasters, survivors often draw upon religious/spiritual (R/S) resources to cope and make meaning (Feder et al., 2013; Henslee et al., 2015; Park, 2016). For example, several studies have found evidence that positive religious coping (i.e., "a secure relationship with a transcendent force, a sense of spiritual connectedness with others, and a benevolent world view," [Pargament, Feuille, & Burdzy, 2011, p. 51]) helps buffer against the negative impact of disasters on survivors' psychological and R/S well-being (e.g., Chan & Rhodes, 2013; Cook, Aten, Moore, Hook, & Davis, 2013; Henslee et al., 2015; Smith, Pargament, Brant, & Oliver, 2000). when it comes to adversity more broadly, there is preliminary evidence that people high in spiritual fortitude (i.e., the ability to endure, act with integrity, and make redemptive meaning from adversity through sacred connections with God and others) may be especially effective at drawing on R/S resources to cope with adversity (Van Tongeren et al., 2018).

No research has concurrently examined the roles of spiritual fortitude and positive religious coping in a natural disaster context, however. Therefore, the purpose of the current study is to help fill this gap by exploring how positive religious coping might mediate (explain) the relationship between spiritual fortitude and postdisaster psychological well-being (e.g., meaning in life) and spiritual well-being.

The Role of Positive Religious Coping in Promoting Positive Postdisaster Outcomes

There are two main types of religious coping: positive religious coping and negative religious coping (Pargament, Ano, & Wachholtz, 2005; Pargament et al., 2011). In this study, we focus on positive religious coping because positive religious coping is a common coping strategy that is employed by disaster survivors (Feder et al., 2013; Henslee et al., 2015; Park, 2016), and there is robust empirical support that it is linked to people's psychological and R/S well-being following adversity (Gall & Guirguis-Younger, 2013; Krok, 2015; Pargament et al., 2011).

Recent longitudinal studies have suggested that positive religious coping leads to R/S growth through communication with God (Van Tongeren et al., 2017). Similarly, in a disaster context, Chan and Rhodes (2013) conducted a three-wave longitudinal study of low-income mothers who survived Hurricane Katrina. They found that even when controlling for a variety of covariates (demographic variables, baseline psychological functioning, and disaster exposure severity), positive religious coping at four years postdisaster was predicted by survivors' predisaster--and 1-year-postdisaster--church attendance and self-rated importance of R/S. Moreover, positive religious coping at four years postdisaster was the mechanism through which predisaster and 1-year-postdisaster church attendance and R/S importance influenced perceived posttraumatic growth at four years postdisaster. In sum, Chan and Rhodes' (2013) findings suggested disaster survivors who are able to sustain positive religious coping practices following a disaster are likely to experience self-reported growth from that disaster, especially if they maintain high religious commitment and involvement (e.g., church attendance).

Furthermore, Smith and colleagues (2000) found that positive religious coping mediated the effect of predisaster religiousness on postdisaster psychological outcomes (e.g., general/nonspecific psychological distress) and spiritual outcomes (e.g., self-reported growth in spirituality, closeness to God, and closeness to a faith community), both at six weeks and six months postdisaster. In other words, disaster survivors who described themselves as being highly religious before the flood tended to report engaging in positive religious coping methods after the disaster, which in turn contributed to more positive postdisaster psychological and R/S outcomes (smith et al., 2000). However, what is left unclear from these studies is the exploration of what allows individuals to remain engaged with their religious beliefs and community (and thus utilize positive religious coping) in the wake of adversity, rather than becoming angry with God, feeling punished or abandoned, or turning away from their faith.

The Role of Spiritual Fortitude in Promoting Positive Postdisaster Outcomes

In the context of adversity, spiritual fortitude may be a character strength that impels people to engage in positive religious coping, which in turn ought to help them restore a sense of meaning in life and enhance their spiritual well-being (Van Tongeren et al., 2018). Spiritual fortitude might be especially important in situations where adversity is long-term (e.g., recovery from a major natural disaster), recurrent (e.g., living in a region hit recurrently by disasters), or unresolvable (e.g., dealing with a chronic illness). In such instances, studying people's "resilience" (i.e., ability to recover to a previous level of functioning; Masten, 2001) or "grit" (i.e., persevering towards a long-term goal; Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, & Kelly, 2007) may be somewhat incomplete. By comparison, studying people's spiritual fortitude would afford an examination of what enables individuals to cope with adversity that (a) has no clear end in sight, (b) keeps happening, or (c) is potentially unresolvable. Spiritual fortitude involves adopting a stance toward enduring adversity in which people commit to engage in virtuous, prosocial action, regardless of whether the suffering ends or is resolved (Van Tongeren et al., 2018).

Although the concept of spiritual fortitude has long existed in various religious traditions (Titus, 2006), it is relatively new to the field of psychological science. Initial work on spiritual fortitude has identified three components of it: spiritual endurance, spiritual enterprise, and redemptive purpose (Van Tongeren et al., 2018). Spiritual endurance refers to an individual's ability to draw on their religion and spirituality to withstand persistent periods of suffering. Spiritual enterprise allows individuals to stay engaged in a struggle and act with integrity rather than avoiding it, disengaging from it, or reacting maladaptively to it. Lastly, redemptive purpose refers to one's ability to make redemptive meaning from adversity through sacred connections with God, others, and oneself (Van Tongeren et al., 2018).

Van Tongeren and colleagues (2018) have explored how spiritual fortitude might enable people to engage adaptively with adversity. For example, people higher in spiritual fortitude ought to show more positive psychological and R/S adjustment to major life stressors. In addition, spiritual fortitude should enable individuals to engage in a meaning-making process that will promote positive religious coping. Indeed, in a sample of 301 community members who had experienced a highly stressful situation in the past three to six months, Van Tongeren et al. (2018) found that spiritual fortitude was positively related to positive religious coping, meaning in life, and spiritual well-being. Furthermore, in a hierarchical regression analysis, spiritual fortitude was positively related to each of these variables, above and beyond the influence of resilience and grit (Van Tongeren et al., 2018). These results support the idea that spiritual fortitude is a distinct construct that might play a role in predicting people's psychological and R/S well-being following adversity. However, to date, no research has specifically examined this possibility in a natural disaster context.

Overview and Hypotheses

Based on this initial work on spiritual fortitude and on extensive research linking positive religious coping to psychological and R/S well-being, we propose that spiritual fortitude allows individuals to draw on R/S resources (i.e., positive religious coping) in the face of adversity. In turn, positive religious coping should lead to restored meaning in life and enhanced spiritual well-being (Park, 2016). Put differently, we hypothesize that disaster survivors who are high in spiritual fortitude will be more likely to engage in positive religious coping, which in turn will be associated with higher meaning in life and spiritual well-being (see Figure 1 for a conceptual diagram).

We specifically had three hypotheses. First, we hypothesized that both spiritual fortitude and positive religious coping would be positively related to positive religious coping, meaning in life, and spiritual well-being. Second, we hypothesized that positive religious coping would mediate the relationship between spiritual fortitude and meaning in life. Third, we hypothesized that positive religious coping would mediate the relationship between spiritual fortitude and spiritual well-being.

Method

Participants and Procedure

Five weeks following Hurricane Matthew, we recruited students from a large university (N = 203) and a technical college (N = 24) in South Carolina. (There were no significant differences between the two samples on any of the study variables.) Participants received extra credit or research credit for taking part in this study, which consisted of an online survey.

Initially, 305 participants completed the survey. Seventy-eight participants were excluded from data analysis because they completed the survey in an impossibly short amount of time or failed attention checks by answering fewer than three out of four validity questions (e.g., "I have three eyeballs") correctly.

The final sample consisted of 227 participants (44 men [19.4%], 182 women [80.2%], and one missing [0.4%]). Participants ranged in age from 18 to 46 years old (M = 19.57, SD = 2.55). In terms of race, most participants identified as White (80.5%), followed by Black/African American (10.2%), Asian/Asian American (3.1%), Latino/a (2.7%), Multiracial (2.7%), and American Indian/Alaskan Native (0.4%). Most participants (95.1%) were not married. The majority (82.7%) were religiously affiliated. Specifically, participants identified as Christian-Protestant (57.5%), Christian-Roman Catholic (19.0%), Jewish (1.8%), < 1% each of Orthodox, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu, nothing in particular (7.1%), Atheist (5.3%), and Agnostic (4.9%). The average religious importance rating was 2.88 (SD = 1.09) on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all important) to 4 (very important).

Participants were also asked about their experience of the disaster. When asked how stressful the experience of Hurricane Matthew was for them (on a scale ranging from 1 = not stressful to 5 = extremely stressful), the average rating was 1.86 (SD = 0.84). Most participants (90.3%) said they were no longer dealing with negative consequences from the storm. Interestingly, 67.7% of participants said they were living in an area impacted by the extensive flooding in South Carolina one year earlier. On the same 5-point Likert scale of stressfulness, the average stressfulness rating from that 2015 South Carolina flood was 3.40 (SD = 1.64).

Participants completed a larger battery of measures from which the specific measures for this study were drawn. Other scales were included to assess different research questions, and these scales may be included in subsequent manuscripts; however, the measures and analyses we present below have not been reported elsewhere.

Measures

Spiritual fortitude. We assessed spiritual fortitude using the 9-item Spiritual Fortitude Scale (SFS; Van Tongeren et al., 2018). This scale consists of three subscales: Spiritual Endurance (e.g., "My faith helps me withstand difficulties"), Spiritual Enterprise (e.g., "I retain my will to live despite my hardship"), and Redemptive Purpose (e.g., "I find meaning in adversity through Sacred connections"). Participants rated items on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = completely untrue of me to 7 = completely true of me). A total score is created by summing item responses. Higher scores reflect higher spiritual fortitude. In prior research, this scale has demonstrated evidence of internal consistency (Cronbach's alphas ranging from .84 to .86) and convergent validity (e.g., positive associations with grit and resilience; Van Tongeren et al., 2018). For the present sample, Cronbach's alpha of the total scale was .86.

Positive religious coping. We assessed positive religious coping with the 7-item Positive subscale of the Brief RCOPE (Pargament et al., 2011). Items are rated on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = not at all to 4 = a great deal). A total score is created by summing item responses. Higher scores reflect higher positive religious coping. An example item is "Sought God's love and care." In a review of 30 studies utilizing the Brief RCOPE, Pargament et al. (2011) found the median international consistency for the Positive Religious Coping subscale was .92, and the subscale demonstrated strong evidence of convergent validity (e.g., positive correlations with a wide variety of indicators of psychological and spiritual well-being). For the present sample, Cronbach's alpha for the subscale was .97.

Meaning in life. We assessed meaning in life using the 5-item Presence subscale of the Meaning in Life Questionnaire (MLQ; Steger, Frazier, Oishi, & Kaler, 2006). Items are rated on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = absolutely untrue to 7 = absolutely true). A total score is created by summing item responses. Higher scores reflect higher presence of meaning in life. An example item is "I have a good sense of what makes my life meaningful." The scale has demonstrated strong evidence of internal consistency (e.g., Cronbach's alphas ranging from .82 to .86) and convergent validity (e.g., positive associations with optimism, life satisfaction, and intrinsic religiosity; Steger et al., 2006). For the present sample, Cronbach's alpha for the subscale was .87.

Spiritual well-being. We assessed spiritual well-being using the 20-item Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS; Ellison, 1983). The SWBS consists of two subscales (religious and existential). Items are rated on a 6-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 6 = strongly agree). After reverse-scoring nine items, a total score is created by summing item responses. Higher scores reflect higher spiritual well-being. An example item is "I have a personally meaningful relationship with God." This scale has demonstrated strong evidence of internal consistency (e.g., Cronbach's alphas ranging from .89 to .93) and convergent validity (e.g., positive associations with meaning, purpose in life, and intrinsic religiosity; Ellison, 1983; Schoenrade, 1995). For the present sample, Cronbach's alpha was .93.

Disaster exposure. To ensure the findings were not simply a result of how strongly one was affected by the disaster, we statistically controlled for participants' degree of disaster exposure, using the 6-item Flood Exposure Scale (FES; Smith et al., 2000). Participants were asked to rate on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = not at all to 5 = a great deal) the extent they had struggled with each item (e.g., "property damage," "affected my community") in response to Hurricane Matthew. A total score is created by summing item responses. Higher scores reflect higher disaster exposure. In prior research, the scale has demonstrated evidence of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = .82) and convergent validity (e.g., positive associations with various indicators of psychological and R/S distress [Smith et al., 2000]). For the present sample, Cronbach's alpha was .73.

Results

To begin, we examined patterns of missing data. Less than 4% of data were missing per item. Little's Missing Completely at Random test was not significant, indicating we could move forward with imputation without introducing bias (Schlomer, Bauman, & Card, 2010). We used expectation maximization to impute missing data. Next, we examined the data for outliers and normality. There were no outliers, and all skewness and kurtosis values were within an acceptable range (i.e., between -1 and +1).

Then, we examined the predicted associations between spiritual fortitude, religious coping, meaning in life, and spiritual well-being. Bivariate correlations and descriptive statistics are reported in Table 1. In support of Hypothesis 1, spiritual fortitude was positively correlated with positive religious coping (r = .44, p < .001), meaning in life (r = .51, p < .001), and spiritual well-being (r = .74, p < .001). Positive religious coping was also positively correlated with meaning in life (r = .34, p < .001) and spiritual well-being (r = .55, p < .001).

Second, to test Hypothesis 2, we used Model 4 of the PROCESS macro for SPSS (Hayes, 2013), which provides estimates for the direct and indirect association of spiritual fortitude to meaning in life via positive religious coping across 10,000 bootstrapping iterations. Controlling for flood exposure, spiritual fortitude was positively related to positive religious coping ([beta] = .30, p < .001) and meaning in life ([beta] = .32, p < .001). Flood exposure was positively related to positive religious coping ([beta] = .26, p = .026) but was not related to meaning in life ([beta] = .01, p = .883). Controlling for spiritual fortitude and flood exposure, positive religious coping was positively related to meaning in life ([beta] = .13, p = .024). The relationship between spiritual fortitude and meaning in life remained significant but demonstrated a reduction in magnitude ([beta] = .28, p < .001). Finally, using the bias-corrected bootstrapping procedure, the indirect effect of spiritual fortitude on meaning in life through positive religious coping was significant (bootstrapped estimate = .04, SE = .02, 95% CI = .002 to .081). The [R.sup.2] mediation effect size indicated that about 9.8% of the variance in meaning in life was explained by the effect of spiritual fortitude through positive religious coping. See Table 2 for a summary of these results.

Third, to test Hypothesis 3, we conducted a similar analysis but with spiritual well-being as the dependent variable. Controlling for flood exposure, spiritual fortitude was positively related to positive religious coping ([beta] = .30, p < .001) and spiritual well-being ([beta] = 1.47, p < .001). Controlling for flood exposure and spiritual fortitude, positive religious coping was positively related to spiritual well-being ([beta] = .85, p < .001). The relationship between spiritual fortitude and spiritual well-being remained significant but demonstrated a reduction in magnitude ([beta] = 1.22, p < .001). Finally, using the bias-corrected bootstrapping procedure based on 10,000 resamples, the indirect effect of spiritual fortitude on spiritual well-being through positive religious coping was significant (bootstrapped estimate = .25, SE = .05, 95% CI = .165 to .364). The [R.sup.2] mediation effect size indicated that about 23.9% of the variance in spiritual well-being was explained by the effect of spiritual fortitude through positive religious coping. See Table 2 for a summary of these results.

Discussion

Given the increasing number and severity of natural disasters, there is a need for correspondingly increased empirical study of how disaster survivors might engage internal R/S resources (e.g., spiritual fortitude) and external R/S resources (e.g., sacred connectedness with God and others) to cope with long-term, recurrent, or unresolvable disaster-related adversity. indeed, disasters affected an unprecedented number of Americans in 2017--25 million people--approximately 8% of the U.S. population (Insurance Journal, 2018). In 2017 alone, there were 16 billion-dollar natural disasters in the U.S., causing $306.2 billion in damage and 362 deaths (NCEI, 2018).

Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the role of spiritual fortitude and positive religious coping in helping promote survivors' postdisaster spiritual and psychological functioning. Much of the existing literature on religious coping in a disaster context has highlighted the role that predisaster religiousness and church attendance play in promoting positive religious coping (e.g., Chan & Rhodes, 2013; Smith et al., 2000). However, it has been unclear which factors have enabled disaster survivors to remain engaged with their religion/spirituality rather than turning away from it. Thus, we sought to examine the potential role of spiritual fortitude and positive religious coping in promoting postdisaster meaning in life and spiritual well-being.

Our main hypothesis was that spiritual fortitude would impel disaster survivors to engage in positive religious coping (e.g., cultivate their perceived relationship with a benevolent God), which in turn would enhance their meaning in life and spiritual well-being. In this initial cross-sectional study, we found support for that hypothesis. First, spiritual fortitude had moderate to strong positive relationships with positive religious coping, meaning in life, and spiritual well-being. Our results replicate and extend findings of Van Tongeren et al. (2018), which was conducted with a community sample of adults who were dealing with an individually experienced stressor (as opposed to a collectively experienced stressor such as a disaster). Second, positive religious coping was positively associated with meaning in life (r = .34) and spiritual well-being (r = .55), replicating the pattern of relationships observed in previous disaster studies (e.g., Chan & Rhodes, 2013; Cook et al., 2013; Smith et al., 2000). Third, a mediation analysis provided support for a theoretical model in which spiritual fortitude was associated with higher levels of positive religious coping, which in turn was associated with higher levels of meaning in life and spiritual well-being. Taken together, results indicated that spiritual fortitude has a direct effect on meaning in life and spiritual well-being, but it also has an indirect effect via its influence on positive religious coping.

Results of this study have important implications. For example, this work supports the idea that spiritual fortitude may be a useful construct to examine when studying people who are in the midst of adversity. Spiritual fortitude involves (a) actively leaning into the suffering (spiritual endurance), (b) adaptively metabolizing it (redemptive purpose), and (c) prosocially responding to it (spiritual enterprise; Van Tongeren et al., 2018). Although many adverse life events may provide opportunities for "recovery" (bouncing back), not all do. Sometimes suffering can be prolonged, recurrent, or unresolvable. For instance, in this study, nearly 70% of the participants had been impacted by the 2015 South Carolina flood, just one year prior to Hurricane Matthew. In short, it is important to understand factors that can help individuals cope with chronic, repeated, or intractable adversity. Spiritual fortitude may be one such factor.

Second, results of this study add to the growing body of work underscoring the importance of drawing upon R/S resources to help survivors cope with natural disasters (e.g., Chan & Rhodes, 2013; Cook et al., 2013; Feder et al., 2013; Henslee et al., 2015; Smith et al., 2000). Disasters can be traumatic, violating one's worldview and sense of safety, security, and meaning (Park, 2016; Park, Holt, Le, Christie, & Williams, 2017). In so doing, they can lead to a variety of adverse psychological and R/S outcomes, such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, substance abuse, or R/S struggle (Aten & Boan, 2016). In adverse situations that threaten one's sense of meaning and beliefs about the world, religion and spirituality can be especially important coping resources because they can provide a framework for understanding, navigating, and adaptively making meaning of one's experiences (Emmons, 2005; Krok, 2015; Pargament & Cummings, 2010; Park, 2005, 2016, 2017; Park et al., 2017). Indeed, research has consistently found inter-relationships among positive religious coping, meaning in life, and spiritual well-being (Arnette, Mascaro, Santana, Davis, & Kaslow, 2007; Park, Malone, Suresh, Bliss, & Rosen, 2008; Park et al., 2017; Trevino et al., 2010; Van Tongeren et al., 2018). Our study highlights the role spiritual fortitude may play in these inter-relationships as well.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

Although the results of this study are promising, there are several important limitations. First, the demographic characteristics of our sample limit the generalizability of our findings. Compared to the general population of disaster survivors, students may have relatively less disaster exposure and relatively more access to resources (which could therefore attenuate the psychological and R/S impact of the disaster). Moreover, participants reported relatively low levels of stress due to the disaster, suggesting the impact of this disaster may have been mitigated largely by outside factors (e.g., support from family and friends; racial or socioeconomic privilege). Furthermore, this sample consisted of mostly women and people who identify as White and Christian. Additional studies are needed to replicate these findings in populations that are more diverse in terms of gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and religious affiliation.

Second, our study design was cross-sectional. We tested a mediational model that implies directionality, but due to the nature of our data, causal conclusions cannot be made. The data were consistent with our proposed theoretical model, but other theoretical models may also fit the data well. In order to provide evidence for causality, future research using experimental or longitudinal designs are needed. Moreover, in the current study, self-report measures were used, which may have led to certain response biases. Future research could utilize other-report or behavioral measures (Dorn, Hook, Davis, Van Tongeren, & Worthington, 2014).

Finally, scholars have begun to examine critically the notion that individuals grow through experiences of adversity (Jayawickreme & Blackie, 2014). Most studies of perceived posttraumatic growth have been retrospective in nature, and some scholars argue that people's retrospective self-reporting of growth from an adverse experience may represent a form of coping as opposed to actual increases in character strengths and well-being. Therefore, the strongest study design to test our model would be both prospective and longitudinal. Even so, despite these limitations, we hope the results of this study can inform future work on spiritual fortitude, positive religious coping, and actual (vs. perceived) posttraumatic growth following adversity such as natural disasters.

Conclusion

Initial work on spiritual fortitude suggests that drawing from R/S resources may help survivors cope with persistent or recurrent stressors. In the wake of a disaster, spiritual fortitude was associated with better psychological and spiritual outcomes--greater meaning in life and higher spiritual well-being--among survivors. Moreover, positive religious coping may be one of the mechanisms by which these outcomes are promoted. As survivors draw from their R/S resources and cultivate their perceived relationship with a benevolent God that helps them make sense of the disaster, they might be able to find redemptive meaning and spiritual peace in the midst of their recovery journey. And ultimately, they might even experience growth along the way.

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Van Tongeren, D. R., Aten, J. D., McElroy, S., Davis, D. E., Shannonhouse, L., Davis, E. B., & Hook, J. N. (2018). Development and validation of a measure of spiritual fortitude. Manuscript submitted for publication.

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Stacey E. McElroy-Heltzel

Georgia State University

Ana Ordaz

Georgia State University

Daryl R. Van Tongeren

Hope College

Don E. Davis

Georgia State University

Sarah Gazaway

Georgia State University

Joshua N. Hook

University of North Texas

Edward B. Davis

Wheaton College

Laura R. Shannonhouse

Georgia State University

Jamie D. Aten

Wheaton College

Nicole A. Stargell

University of North Carolina at Pembroke

This publication was made possible through the support of a grant from the John Templeton Foundation (Grant #44040). The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Stacey McElroy-Heltzel, Department of Counselling and Psychological Services, Georgia State University, 30 Pryor Street, Atlanta, GA 30303;smcelroy3@gsu.edu

Authors

Stacey E. McElroy-Heltzel (Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, Georgia State University) is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Georgia State University. Dr. McElroy-Heltzel's research interests include intercultural couples, humility, and religion/spirituality.

Daryl R. Van Tongeren (Ph.D. in Social Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University) is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Hope College. He studies the psychology of meaning, religion, virtues, and suffering.

Sarah Gazaway is a Master's student in the Mental Health Counseling program at Georgia State University. Her research interests include humility, perfectionism, and religion/spirituality.

Ana C. Ordaz (B.A. in Psychology, Georgia State University) is a Clinical Mental Health Counseling Master's student at Georgia State University. Ana's research interests include forgiveness, trauma, religion/spirituality, multiculturalism, and mental health of Latinx communities.

Don E. Davis (Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology) is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA. His research interests include positive psychology--especially relational virtues of humility, forgiveness, and gratitude--as well as integration of spirituality into counseling.

Joshua N. Hook (Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, Virginia Commonwealth University) is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of North Texas. Dr. Hook's research interests include humility, religion/spirituality, and multicultural counseling. He also blogs regularly at www.joshuanhook.com.

Edward B. Davis (Psy.D, Regent University) is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College (IL). His research focuses on the psychology of religion and spirituality, especially relational spirituality, God representations, disasters, and positive psychology.

Jamie D. Aten (Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology, Indiana State University) is the Dr. Arthur P. Rech and Mrs. Jean May Rech Associate Professor of Psychology and the Founder and Executive Director of the Humanitarian Disaster Institute at Wheaton College. Dr. Aten's primary professional interests include the psychology of religion/spirituality and disasters, spiritually oriented disaster psychology, and psychology in disaster ministry.

Laura R. Shannonhouse (Ph.D. in Counseling and Counselor Education, University of North Carolina at Greensboro) is an Assistant Professor at Georgia State University. In K-12 schools and district systems, Dr. Shannonhouse conducts training and research to prevent youth suicide (suicide first aid), and with disaster-impacted populations, she conducts training and research to foster meaning making through one's faith tradition (spiritual first aid).

Nicole A. Stargell (Ph.D. in Counseling and Counselor Education, University of North Carolina at Greensboro) is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, at which she also serves as the Field Placement and Testing Coordinator and student honor society Chapter Faculty Advisor. Dr. Stargell's interests include grief and loss, outcome effectiveness, and children/adolescents.

Caption: Figure 1. Hypotheses 2 and 3: Conceptual diagram depicting the effect of spiritual fortitude (X) on meaning in life ([Y.sub.1]) and spiritual well-being ([Y.sub.2]) through positive religious coping (M). In other words, positive religious coping mediates the relationship between spiritual fortitude and both meaning in life and spiritual well-being.

Table 1

Psychometric Properties and Intercorrelations of Study Variables

                                        Range

Variable          M        SD     Possible    Actual       1

1. Spiritual    47.67     9.42      9-63       19-63     (.86)
fortitude

2. Positive     12.37     6.69      7-28       7-28      44 **
religious
coping

3. Meaning      25.32     5.94      5-35       5-35      51 **
in life

4. Spiritual    90.24    18.74     20-120     43 -120   .74 **
well-being

5. Flood         9.22     3.51      6-30       6-30      .14 *
exposure

Variable           2         3         4         5

1. Spiritual
fortitude

2. Positive      (.97)
religious
coping

3. Meaning      .34 **     (.87)
in life

4. Spiritual     55 **    .54 **     (.93)
well-being

5. Flood        .19 **      .08       .05      (.73)
exposure

Note. N = 227. Coefficient alphas are presented along the diagonal.

* p < .05, ** p < .01

Table 2

Results from Regression Analyses Examining the Effect of Spiritual
Fortitude (X) on Meaning in life ([Y.sub.1]) and Spiritual Well-Being
([Y.sub.2]) through Positive Religious Coping (M)

                                              Consequent

                                     Positive religious coping (M)

Antecedent                           Coeff.      SE          p

Spiritual                  a          0.30      0.04      < 0.001
fortitude (X)
Positive                               -          -          -
religious coping
Flood exposure                        0.26      0.11       0.026
(control)
Constant               [i.sub.1]     -4.10      2.20       0.063

                                           [R.sup.2] = 0.21
                                     F (2,224) = 29.21, p < 0.001

                                             Consequent

                                    Positive religious coping (M)

Antecedent                           Coeff.      SE          P

Spiritual fortitude        a          0.30      0.04      < 0.001
(X)
Positive religious                     -          -          -
coping
Flood exposure                        0.26      0.11       0.026
(control)
Constant               [i.sub.1]     -4.10      2.20       0.063

                                          [R.sup.2] = 0.21
                                     F (2,224) = 29.21, p < 0.001

                                             Consequent

                                    Meaning in life ([Y.sub.1])

Antecedent                           Coeff.      SE          p

Spiritual                  c'         0.28      0.04      < 0.001
fortitude (X)
Positive                   b          0.13      0.06       0.024
religious coping
Flood exposure                       -0.02      0.10       0.850
(control)
Constant               [i.sub.2]     10.45      1.88      < 0.001

                                            [R.sup.2] = 0.28
                                      F (3,223) = 28.43, p < .001

                                              Consequent

                                    Spiritual well-being ([Y.sub.2])

Antecedent                           Coeff.      SE          p

Spiritual fortitude        c'         1.22      0.09      < 0.001
(X)
Positive religious         b          0.85      0.13      < 0.001
coping
Flood exposure                       -0.47      0.23       0.038
(control)
Constant               [i.sub.2]     25.75      4.32      < 0.001

                                           [R.sup.2] = 0.62
                                     F (3,223) = 119.05, p < 0.001

Note. N = 227. SE = standard error.