Dogmatism and mental health: A comparison of the religious and secular.

Abstract

Religiousness has frequently been found to be associated with higher reported mental health levels than those found in individuals lower in reported religiousness. These results have often been inferred by scholars to mean that secular groups have poorer levels of mental health despite the fact that secular populations have rarely been included in studies. In this study, an ideologically diverse sample of 4,667 respondents was included to determine the relationships among general dogmatism levels, existential dogmatism, religiousness, and 5 indicators of mental health. The sample mainly comprised agnostic, atheist, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, and spiritual nonreligious participants. Statistical analyses indicated that atheistic and theistic groups showed no significant differences on 4 of the 5 mental health indicators. Existential dogmatism and religiousness had similar positive relationships with mental health, but each had weak predictive strengths. The implications of the current study are that secular and religious adherents have similar levels of mental health, which is contrary to expectations based on the previous literature.

(Non)Religious Coping with a Natural Disaster in a Rural U.S. Community

“…Generally, though, (non)religiousness and (non)spirituality were not independently predictive of posttraumatic growth. Further, the current study, like previous examinations of trauma (Koenig, 2012;Moore & Leach, 2016), natural disasters (Aslam & Kamal, 2015;Aten et al, 2019), and religiousness, suggested higher levels of institutional religiousness may provide some protection against negative trauma-related outcomes and religiousness and spirituality may facilitate posttraumatic growth at higher levels of trauma intensity. However, the relationship between positive outcomes and religiousness may be driven by active participation in a personal belief system, rather than strength of identification alone (Berthold & Ruch, 2014) or social engagement (McCaffree, 2019).…”

“…Although religiosity may buffer the adverse impact of stress (Lawler-Row & Elliott, 2009;Koenig, 2012;Moore & Leach, 2016) and religiosity and well-being are positively associated (Jackson & Bergeman, 2014;Nichols & Hunt, 2011;Reed & Neville, 2014), few, if any, religiously unaffiliated people are included in such studies. In a study of church and secular group members, Galen and Kloet (2011) found high certainty in participants' belief or nonbelief in god(s) was associated with higher emotional stability and life satisfaction as compared to participants' with less certainty in their (non)belief, even when controlling for demographic (e.g., age, gender) and social (social support) variables.…”

The psychology of nonbelievers

“…One common misunderstanding given the established link between religiosity and health is that nonreligion is "a health liability" [54, p. 370 positive/negative affect, and subjective happiness. This relationship is cross-culturally robust and has been identified in several national, ethnic, and religious contexts, ranging from the United States [29], East Germany [60], Turkey [61], and Israel [62], for example.…”

A Complex Simplicity: The Relationship of Religiosity and Nonreligiosity to Life Satisfaction

“…For example, a convinced atheist probably has difficulty answering questions on the importance of God or religion in his or her life or on the certainty of his or her religious beliefs if he or she wants to indicate that it is a central aspect in his or her life not to believe in God or adhere to a religion and that he or she is certain of his or her nonbelief. Cragun, Hammer, and Nielsen (2015) call such questions that assume religiosity as the norm and are therefore difficult to answer out of a nonreligious perspective “one‐and‐a‐half barreled items.” This might be one reason why Ellison (1991) did not find any nonlinear effects in his study because a question on the certainty of religious belief is difficult to answer for nonreligious individuals. Nonreligious individuals are not differentiated from weakly religious individuals and are often functioning as a residual group (Farias and Coleman In press; Galen 2015; Hwang, Hammer, and Cragun 2011; Moore and Leach 2016; Pasquale 2012; Zuckerman, Galen, and Pasquale 2016). Additionally, there is no differentiation between types of nonreligious individuals (e.g., atheists, agnostics, indifferent individuals, etc.…”