LAUSR

ABSTRACT This study explores how religious orientation, religious involvement, and religious coping are related to thinking styles among university students in mainland China. The Thinking Styles Inventory-Revised II (TSI-R2), Age Universal Intrinsic/Extrinsic Scale-12, the religious involvement scale, and the brief RCOPE were administered to 933 students. Results showed these three inventories are reliable among Chinese students, and that religiousness significantly positively predicted Type I thinking styles (i.e. more creativity-generating, less structured, and cognitively more complex). This study implicated that university students’ religious orientation, religious involvement, and religious coping deserve attention; professional religious personnel could promote students’ Type I thinking styles by increasing their religiousness within the legal places of worship; religious university students may improve their Type I thinking styles through more actively participate in off campus religious activities. The limitations and contributions of this research are also discussed.