Student Research Report: Can Religion Make You Happy?

In Spring 2021, students in Dr. Emily Stark’s Research Methods and Design course completed multiple hands-on data collection projects. They were also assigned a blog paper where they discussed one of the topics they chose to research and explained their findings to a general audience. The goal of this was to give students an opportunity to explore a different form of writing from APA-style research papers. Some of these blog papers will be featured here throughout the summer to showcase the students’ findings. Please feel free to contact Dr. Stark through the contact form on this site for additional information about this course or the assignments used.


By Anna Scherber

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What does it mean to be happy? Let’s start by defining happiness. According to Merriam-Webster, happiness is a state of well-being and contentment; or a pleasurable or satisfying experience. Now the question is, how do we achieve this happiness? There are many ways that we can experience happiness: a good time with friends, a snuggle sesh with a cute puppy, or a huge ice cream cone…to name a few. These things can definitely make us happy, but I’m not sure if that happiness will last very long. What about lasting happiness? How can we achieve that?

Something that has been researched is the fact that different aspects of religious involvement are associated with happiness (Krause, Ironson, & Hill, 2017). There can be a ripple effect: when a person attends worship services, they are then more committed to their faith; when they are more committed to their faith, they are more compassionate; when they are more compassionate, they are more likely to provide emotional support to others; and when they provide support to others, they tend to be happier. This could also have to do with the fact that the roots of religion are often found in the relationships of people who share common beliefs.

There definitely seems to be something about religious involvement and faith that makes people happier. Maybe a reason for this is the fact that there is strength in numbers (Walsh, 2017). Scientists have pretty much always known that having strong social ties is something that basically guarantees living a happy life. And while religion isn’t the only social tie that binds, the ties of faith can be particularly strong. The word religion derives from the Latin term religio, which means “to bind together”. One thing that brings people of faith together is the fact that virtually every faith tradition in the world promotes and encourages loving other people, helping those in need, and forgiving those who have hurt us. As humans, we are social beings, so it only makes sense that having people around us throughout life is not only helpful, but necessary. We can’t live this life on our own, or at least we shouldn’t. Having people in our lives who share in our beliefs can help us to grow stronger in our faith, which in turn, could make us happier people.

A study done in 2015 at the London School of Economics and the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands found that participating in a religious organization was the only social activity associated with sustained happiness. Religious involvement outweighed volunteering for a charity, taking educational courses, and participating in a political or community organization when it came to happiness levels. It has also been shown that religious people tend to be less depressed and anxious than those who are not religious.

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I was also curious about this idea, so for my Research Methods course I conducted a survey asking participants about their religious involvement, their overall life happiness level, and their experiences of stress. While the results of my study didn’t show relationships between religious involvement and happiness or stress, they did show a relationship between happiness levels and experiences of stress. This tells us that as a person’s happiness level changes, their experiences of stress also change. According to Krause (2017), social support from fellow church members is more likely to offset the effects of stress than support from people from secular social networks. Like I mentioned earlier, we shouldn’t live this life on our own, we need people around us who support and care for us.

Another thing to think about is our purpose in life. There is research that has found that purpose in life has a strong association with happiness (Sillick & CathCart, 2013). There is also research out there that suggests that those with a religious orientation that is deeply personal experience a higher sense of purpose in life. If having purpose in life can lead to happiness, and a person who is religious on a personal level has a higher sense of purpose, maybe having religiosity could lead to greater happiness. Having a greater sense of purpose can help us to make it through the good times of life, and also the harder times.

I do think something to keep in mind is the fact that in life there will still be hardships and struggles. Even with religion and faith, we will still suffer. As long as we live here on earth, there will be suffering. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t still be happy. Being involved in a religious institution can provide the community necessary in order to make it through the tough times of life (Walsh, 2017). Those involved in a faith community can walk together through the storms of life and can lead each other towards God and their ultimate purpose in life.


References

Krause, N., Ironson G., & Hill, P. (2018). Religious involvement and happiness: Assessing the mediating role of compassion and helping others. The Journal of Social Psychology, 158:2, 256-270. DOI: 10.1080/00224545.2017.1331992

Sillick, W. J. & Cathcart, S. (2014). The relationship between religious orientation and happiness: the mediating role of purpose in life. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 17:5, 494-507. DOI: 10.1080/13674676.2013.852165

Walsh, B. (2017. August 7). Does Spirituality Make You Happy? Time. https://time.com/4856978/spirituality-religion-happiness/