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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Aug 1.
Published in final edited form as: Psycholog Relig Spiritual. 2016 Aug;8(3):218–227. doi: 10.1037/rel0000062

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Simple meditational model. Our conceptual model posits that, for spiritually oriented married couples, spiritual meaning (i.e., “the extent to which an individual believes that life or some force of which life is a function has a purpose, will, or way in which individuals participate,” Mascaro et al., 2004, p. 845) is the mechanism through which both marital and spiritual intimacy are related to physical/psychological well-being. That is, variation in both marital and spiritual intimacy predict variation in spiritual meaning, which in turn predict variation in physical/psychological well-being. We argue this indirect effect occurs because spiritually oriented married couples cultivate marital and spiritual intimacy partly to nurture their sense of spiritual meaning, which in turn enhances their physical/psychological well-being.