Religious Commitment, Social Support and Life Satisfaction

Abstract

Most studies on life satisfaction have focused on the effects of psychological and socioeconomic factors while disregarding the importance of religion and the social support available to individuals. The limited available studies on life satisfaction have however shown that it is generally low in Nigeria. This study, therefore, investigates the influence of religious commitment and perceived social support on life satisfaction among residents in Ibadan metropolis. Using a 2-way factorial design and a multistage sampling technique, five of the eleven Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the metropolis were purposively selected. Based on the list of enumeration areas for 2005 census, 10 enumeration areas each were selected from the LGAs with simple random technique. The number of participants on the selected enumeration areas were determined with enumeration area maps. Two hundred and twenty participants each were selected from the LGAs using systematic technique making a total of 1,100 participants. The selected houses were marked and the participants were sampled. A structured questionnaire focusing on socio-demographic profile, life satisfaction scale (r=O.74), religious commitment scale (r=O.72) and a multi-dimensional scale of perceived social support (r=0.87) was administered to the participants. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and analysis of variance at 0.05 level of significance. Two hypotheses were tested. The result reveals that social support did not have significant main effect on life satisfaction (F (1,237) =.04; p>.05) while religious commitment significantly influenced life satisfaction (F (1,237) = 10.79; p<.05). There was a significant interaction effect of religious commitment and social. support on life satisfaction (F(1 ,237)=4. 15). These findings have implications for religious and social assessment of participants on improvement of life satisfaction.