Date of Award

1-1-1985

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

Although the problem of ministerial loneliness is widely acknowledged in the literature, there is a conspicuous dearth of empirical research investigating the nature of the difficulty. Based on a review of the literature and exploratory interviews with several local pastors in the Grand Forks area, a study was designed to investigate ministerial loneliness by qualitatively assessing and comparing both the nature of the friendships of a population of pastors vs. those of matched control laymen, and the nature of existing normative structures for these two groups. The relationship between the friendship variables and normative variables for both groups were analyzed and compared.The questionnaire format of data gathering was used. Pastors and controls from 12 congregations responded to a questionnaire to provide a qualitative description of their closest friendships. A second questionnaire was given to a large group of respondents from each congregation, half responding with the pastor and half with the control as their focus. This questionnaire provided a description of (a) normative restrictions which the respondent imposes on the focus person, (b) the strength of the friendship he has with the focus person, and (c) the amount of discomfort he experiences in the focus person's presence. Each of the pastors were also asked to predict how the men from the congregation would respond to this questionnaire.Correlational analyses and matched t-tests were conducted on the data. The results indicated that there were no differences between the friendships--closest or casual--of the pastors and controls. There were also no overall differences between pastors and controls in terms of normative structure, although the pastors' norms did differ somewhat in that they were less crystallized and greater in intensity. However, none of these differences contributed to significant variability in the pastor's friendships. The only variables related to the strength of the pastors' closest friendships were their perceptions of some of the norms.The findings were interpreted and discussed and suggestions for later research were recommended.

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