Does religious affiliation make people happier?

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Each and every single one of you probably knows someone religious in one way or another. You may have noticed yourself, or just heard from another person that religious people tend to be happier. But is that actually true? Does religious affiliation make people happier, or is it just a plea from your mother to get you up Sunday morning?

A null hypothesis for this would be that religious affiliation does not affect happiness whatsoever. The alternative hypothesis for this would be that religious affiliation does make people happier.

A study done by the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture found a very strong link between religious affiliation and happiness in an individual. 15,738 Americans between 18 and 60 years old were surveyed. 45% of those in the 15,738 that went to at least one religious service during the week described themselves as very happy, while just 28% of those who never went said they were very happy. Considering it is a self-reported correlational study, the study may be a little hard to trust since correlation doesn’t equal causation. Also, the fact that the study is self reported also takes away from credibility. However, the sample size is incredibly huge, increasing credibility.

To see if this study was an outlier, other studies were looked at. A researcher from Harvard, Robert Putnam, took a sample of 3,108 American adults and asked about religious activities, their social networks and their religious beliefs. A year later, they called back the same people and around 2/3 of them responded again (1,915 to be exact). The study showed that religious people were happier than religious people as well. 28% of people who went to a religious service each week were very satisfied with their lives, while only 19.6% of those people who never went were very satisfied. He also found those who began to go to religious services more often became happier between 2006 and 2007. This study also has a large sample size, but is less trustworthy as the sample could not be completely randomized (only certain kinds of people will answer surveys on the phone). In order to improve this particular study, I would have used a different media such as internet, and used a sample size that included many more people from all over the world.

While that study is less trustworthy, it still follows the hypothesis that religious affiliation makes people happier, which seems to be found consistently throughout research: This paper lists several sources that show that religious affiliation makes people happier in countries all over the world, as well as the source in a book by Arthur Brooks. It is clear that if a meta-analysis was done on all the studies regarding the subject, the vast majority would argue that religious affiliation makes people happier.

So we can reject the null hypothesis. But can we accept the alternative hypothesis? That answer is a little more shaky. In multiple studies, when those asked to report their level of happiness, they were also asked why. The answer tended to be the social relationships that were made through religious services made the people happier. Multiple researchers found this to be the case, making this a clear third confounding variable. A completely different study that looked at many different countries all over the world also found that in the countries that were more religious (such as the United States), the happiness gap between religious and non-religious people was LARGER than in less religious countries.

It is not surprising that a different factor other than faith has come up to be a confounding variable. In the study by Leibovici, in which he tried to figure out whether prayer healed (we talked about it in class), supernatural explanations had to put aside as they were not part of science. His conclusion was also unreasonable as there was no known mechanism for how prayer would work. Through more studies, the idea that social relationships is the reason religious people are happier will most likely be accepted.

I personally am not religious, but I have had the experience to see the social relationships that come about from religious affiliation and it is not hard for me to believe at all that those relationships can make people happier. Overall, it seems as though religious affiliation can make people happier (just maybe not in the way you thought!).

One thought on “Does religious affiliation make people happier?

  1. Meghan Kelly Shiels

    As a Christian, I have to agree that social relationships are a big part of religion. However, there are a few things to consider that the researchers may not. The first is a relationship with God which could be a source of happiness. Science and religion don’t traditionally work well together in the modern world, which may be why that relationship was overlooked in the study. (Particularly as science refuses to attribute things to supernatural causes, and faith relies on it). Another thing to consider in this situation are the elements of religious doctrine, including a focus on service for others and on remaining separate from material things. Both of these things can help create happiness in way that other activities can’t. I think that a more complete study may be called for here that examines more of the factors involved in being a church and how they affect happiness level individually. There may be a few more confounding or contributing variables than originally thought.

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