Spirituality and the psychological impact of unemployment: Personality characteristics, loneliness and depressive symptomatology

The purpose of this research is to explore spirituality in relation to the negative impacts of unemployment, such as depressive symptomatology and loneliness in connection with the five factor personality model. In particular, we wanted to investigate whether the unemployed individuals with higher levels of spirituality have lower depressive symptomatology and loneliness, but also to examine how these variables are related to personality factors. Our sample consisted of 133 unemployed individuals who completed the NEO-Five Factor Inventory, the Assessment of Spirituality and Religious Sentiments (ASPIRES), the UCLA loneliness scale and the Questionnaire of self evaluated Depressive Symptomatology. The results showed that there was no significant association between depressive symptomatology and spirituality, while concerning loneliness and spirituality, a significant negative correlation was found, only in relation to the spirituality dimension of universality. Significant correlations were also shown between spirituality and personality factors, such as openness to experience and agreeableness, whilst significant correlations arose between personality factors and the three dimensions of spirituality. Finally, results are discussed.