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STATEMENT OF PURPOSE The purpose of the research and its goals is to find a correlation between age, faith development, fundamentalism, and religious coping. We assume religious focus (turning to beliefs and behaviors concerning the transcendent) and marking religious boundaries (clarifying acceptable and unacceptable behaviors) are more frequently used religious coping strategies for fundamentalists. These methods provide an outlet for them to cling to their traditional religious beliefs, and result in a sense of comfort and stability. In stage two and three you follow what your parents tell you and this leads to not a real development of a relationship with God. Thus, persons in stages two and three will not use religious coping methods of spiritual connection as much. In stage four the person is starting to form their own individual relationship with God with their own unique set of religious ideas. Thus, people in stage four are more likely to use spiritual connection than those in stages two and three. We suspect those in stage 5 will be the most likely to use spiritual connection because they have established their own separate identity in their relationship to God and they are finding unity in other people, a type of spiritual connection. As an individual ages, we suspect their relationship with a higher power grows. This may be due to the fact a person accumulates more spiritual experiences as they age, they turn to a higher power to deal with the thought of dying, and losing loved ones. Thus, we expect there to be a positive correlation between age and spiritual connection. STATEMENT OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Archival data is being used from time 1 for the current study. All participants are being used. To review from the previous study, approved by CUHSR, we asked participants in introductory classes at two different universities in psychology classes to answer online surveys for course credit or extra credit, but participation was optional and they could stop at any time or omit questions they did not feel comfortable answering. Four hundred thirty five students were surveyed. The online survey required a password and data was kept in a locked office on a file requiring a password. We did not ask for names. A one way ANOVA used faith development stages as the independent variable and religious coping as the dependent variable. Pearson Bivariate Correlations were run between age, fundamentalism, and religious coping. ANTICIPATED RISKS AND BENEFITS Possible risks include being able to identify the participant through their email addresses, which may cause embarrassment. However, since the data was collected we have deleted the email addresses from the data set cutting the link between participants and answers. Some of the questions may have been uncomfortable to answer but participants were allowed to leave questions blank at their own discretion. Another possible risk to the study was to be reliving stressor again while thinking about questions. The student’s participation was voluntary and they were allowed to withdraw at any time. The study did not ask for names, required a password to complete, and the data is kept in a locked office on a password-protected computer. Benefits for the participant include learning more about oneself – one’s religion, ways of coping, and outcomes of a personal stressor. This is all archival data previously reviewed and approved by the CUHSR. SUBJECT SELECTION The participants consisted of 435 college students attending one of two schools surveyed (one in the Midwest - MWSU, and one on the west coast). This is an archival study - the data was previously collected. The students were asked to take an online survey course credit or extra credit. The survey included demographic questions (e.g., age, gender), general religious questions (amount of church attendance, prayer), and also had measures of religious fundamentalism, faith development, religious coping, Christian orthodoxy, mystical experiences, and daily spiritual experiences. The survey also asked about a stressful event in the participant’s life and concerned various aspects of the stressful event (e.g., amount of control, feeling overwhelmed). Measures of outcomes of the stressful event included the stress related growth scale, general outcomes from stress, depression, anxiety, and hostility. We conducted a follow up study two months later asking the same questions. CONFIDENTIALITY The student’s participation was voluntary and they were allowed to withdraw at any time. The study did not ask for names, required a password to complete, and the data is kept in a locked office on a password-protected computer.