Religion and Subjective Well-Being in Adulthood: A Quantitative Synthesis

Witter, Robert A.; Stock, William A.; Okun, Morris A.; Haring, Marilyn J.

doi:10.2307/3511048

Cited by 276 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The significance of this association should not be underestimated. For example Witter et al (1985) reviewed 28 wellbeing studies and found that the majority reported a positive association between religion and subjective wellbeing. Moreover they found that religion accounted for 2-6% of the variation in subjective wellbeing.…”

Section: Religion and Wellbeingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Happiness in Bangladesh: The Role of Religion and Connectedness

2017

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Research into the relation between religion and happiness offers inconclusive evidence. Religion seems to matter but it is not entirely clear how and why. Moreover much of the research to date is rooted in western experiences. This article analyzes primary data from Bangladesh to examine how religion figures in people's wellbeing and life chances. It identifies differences in reported happiness between the country's two largest religious populations: Muslims and Hindus. Our main argument is that the significance of religion is only really understood when considered alongside social, economic and political processes. The data and analysis make an important contribution to the limited knowledge we have of the relation between religion, political connectedness and happiness in non-western societies. It also highlights the need to incorporate more contextualizing analyses into our assessments of the relation between religion and happiness.

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Section: Religion and Wellbeingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Happiness in Bangladesh: The Role of Religion and Connectedness

2017

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“…However, previous studies have found that the frequency of religious service attendance is the strongest and the most consistent predictor of various measures of subjective well-being (e.g., Witter et al 1985;Lim and Putnam 2010), making it pertinent to focus on this specific aspect of religious participation. In addition, although it is still possible that religious individuals over-report their religious activities on Sunday in retrospective time diary, a number of studies have suggested that the time diary-based measure of church attendance can be less susceptible to social desirability bias compared to conventional survey measures (Hadaway, Marler, and Chaves 1993;Presser and Stinson 1998;Brenner 2011).…”

Section: Explanatory Variablementioning

confidence: 99%

“…But a number of life circumstance factors, such as age, income, and marital status, have also been correlated with subjective and psychological well-being. Among such factors, religious involvement, especially attending religious services regularly, has been demonstrated to be one of the stronger correlates (e.g., Witter et al 1985;Ellison et al 1989) This study aims to extend this literature on religion and subjective well-being by analyzing the American Time Use Survey data (ATUS) to explore the link between religious service attendance and affective well-being as experienced in daily life. Using this dataset, this study advances our understanding of the connection between religion and subjective well-being in several ways.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Religion, Time Use, and Affective Well-Being

Lim¹

2016

SocScience

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This study examines whether religious people experience more positive affect and less negative affect in everyday life and, if they do, whether it is because of the differences in how they allocate time to different activities or because they feel differently during similar activities. Using the well-being module from the 2010-13 American Time Use Survey (ATUS), I show that churchgoers enjoy a significantly higher level of affective well-being on Sunday than non-churchgoers do. The supplementary analysis of the Gallup Daily Poll data suggests that this higher level of affective wellbeing among churchgoers is found throughout the rest of the week as well. Further analyses of the ATUS demonstrate that about 40 percent of the affective well-being gap between churchgoers and non-churchgoers on Sunday can be explained by how they spend their time differently. Churchgoers spend more time on Sunday participating in pleasant activities shared with family members and friends than non-churchgoers do. More than half of the gap, however, remains unexplained, implying that it has to do with how they feel during similar activities rather than the activities in which they participate. I discuss the implications of these findings on the mechanisms underlying the link between religion and subjective well-being.

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“…Studies, in general, report respondents who are religious [24,46,62], and live in good neighborhood [25,39,34] seem to have greater satisfaction with life. On the other hand, life satisfaction differentials by ethnicity [34,42] and location [8,36] are complex and often confounded by other socio-economic and demographic factors.…”

Section: Exogenous Conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determinants of life satisfaction in Canada: A causal modeling approach

Branch-Allen

Jayachandran

2016

SHS Web of Conferences

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Abstract. Most research studies on Life Satisfaction/Subjective Wellbeing (SWB) have focused on one main determinant and a variety of social demographic variables to delineate the determinants of life satisfaction. However, very few research studies examine life satisfaction from a holistic approach. The aim of this study was to utilize a holistic approach to construct a causal model and identify major determinants of life satisfaction. This study utilized data from the General Social Survey, with a sample size of 19,597. Several multiple regression models were run sequentially to estimate standardized path coefficients for the causal model. Overall, above average satisfaction with life was reported by Canadian respondents. Respondents who were female, younger, married, from high socioeconomic status background, born in Canada, very religious, and demonstrated high level of neighborhood interaction had greater satisfaction with life. Similarly, respondents had greater life satisfaction if they had better health, social contact, leisure activities, more time with family and friends, more enjoyment with volunteer activities, and a greater sense of belonging to the community. Our results suggest that a holistic approach is necessary for understanding the causal process of life satisfaction. A significant number of causal connections contradict some of the findings in literature today. We have provided some possible explanations for these anomalies and policy implications.

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Religion and Subjective Well-Being in Adulthood: A Quantitative Synthesis

Cited by 276 publications

References 33 publications

Happiness in Bangladesh: The Role of Religion and Connectedness

Happiness in Bangladesh: The Role of Religion and Connectedness

Religion, Time Use, and Affective Well-Being

Determinants of life satisfaction in Canada: A causal modeling approach

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