Hubungan Views of Suffering dan Occupational Stress pada Pemuka Agama

Abstract

Religious leaders are critical figures that take on numerous roles for their congregation in a religiously dense community like Indonesia. With every responsibility entailed within their profession, religious leaders face numerous challenges resulting in occupational stress - distress or eustress, depending on how they interpret their hardships. Religious leaders might employ a faith-based belief such as Views of suffering (VOS) to give meaning to their professional stressors. Thus, this paper aims to examine the role of different VOS in the experience of religious leaders' occupational stress. Views of Suffering Scale (VOSS) and Valencia Eustress-Distress Appraisal Scale (VEDAS) were administered to religious leaders (N=108) from six official religions of Indonesia that were sampled through a quota sampling process. The majority of participants were Mulsim faith leaders. Correlational analysis revealed a significant positive relationship between overcoming VOS and occupational distress, while unorthodox and limited knowledge VOS has a significant positive relationship with occupational eustress. In addition, no other forms of VOS have any significant association with occupational distress or eustress. These results suggest that beliefs attributing misfortune solely to God directly correlates with higher distress. In contrast, beliefs that position religious leaders as active participants and in control of adversity tend to see their stressors as opportunities for growth, thus higher eustress, which is more beneficial for religious leaders.