A Comparative Analysis of the Relationship of Religious Orientation (Intrinsic and Extrinsic) with Mental Health and Illogical Beliefs

The present paper aims at making a comparative study into the relationship of religious orientation (intrinsic and extrinsic) with mental health and illogical beliefs. The statistical population consists all students of ''Allamah Tabatabaii University. A sample including 216 students completed a questionnaire on Test (IBT) general health، Jones illogical Beliefs which was conducted in Ahwaz، and Allport''s questionnaire on religious orientation (intrinsic and extrinsic). The data were analyzed by such statistical indexes as mean، standard deviation، correlation، regression، and multivariate analysis of variance. The results show that intrinsic religious orientation has a negative and significant relationship with sub-factor of emotional irresponsibility but a positive and significant relationship with mental health، and that these two kinds of relationships can be predicted. Furthermore، intrinsic religious orientation has a positive and significant relationship with symptoms of anxiety and extrinsic religious orientation a negative and significant relationship with them. These kinds of relationships were predictable and the factors of illogical beliefs could predict students'' mental health. MANOVA test showed that there is no significant difference between male and female students in terms of religious orientation. In brief، we can conclude that only through religious orientation mental health and illogical beliefs can be improved.