Elsevier

Social Science Research

Volume 38, Issue 3, September 2009, Pages 656-667
Social Science Research

Blessed assurance: Religion, anxiety, and tranquility among US adults

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2009.02.002Get rights and content

Abstract

A growing body of research investigates the possible relationships between religion and mental health. After developing a series of arguments linking various aspects of religion with anxiety and tranquility, we test relevant hypotheses using data from the 1996 General Social Survey. Results show that frequency of religious attendance and the belief in an afterlife are inversely associated with feelings of anxiety and positively associated with feelings of tranquility. However, frequency of prayer has no direct association with either outcome. Strong beliefs in the pervasiveness of sin are positively linked with anxiety but unrelated to tranquility. Finally, belief in an afterlife and frequency of prayer buffer the adverse effects of poor health and financial decline on anxiety. Implications of these findings are discussed along with study limitations and promising directions for future research.

Introduction

Over the past two decades, a burgeoning literature has explored the relationships between religion and mental health. While a long tradition of theoretical and case-based work suggests that religious involvement may be antithetical to psychological well-being (e.g., Ellis, 1962, Branden, 1994, Watters, 1992), recent analyses of clinical and population-based samples have often reached a more favorable conclusion. Indeed, while the findings are not unanimous, mounting evidence indicates that religious involvement tends to be associated with better mental health (Levin and Chatters, 1998, Koenig et al., 2001, Hackney and Sanders, 2003). Although this area began as the province of other disciplines—notably psychiatry, psychology, gerontology, and public health—sociologists have also made significant contributions to this area, as exemplified by a number of recent studies (e.g., Ellison et al., 2001, Schnittker, 2001, Nooney and Woodrum, 2002, Schieman et al., 2003, Jang and Johnson, 2004, Jang and Johnson, 2005).

Despite the recent advances in this area, several key issues remain unresolved. First, while researchers have concentrated heavily on certain outcomes, such as depression and life satisfaction, surprisingly few studies have probed the links between religion and other important emotional states, such as anxiety and tranquility, and the results of those investigations have been decidedly mixed (Koenig et al., 2001, Shreve-Neiger and Edelstein, 2004). Second, although it is widely recognized that religion is a multidimensional phenomenon (Stark and Glock, 1968, Williams, 1994, Idler et al., 2003), there is little agreement on which aspects (e.g., which behaviors, beliefs, experiences, etc.) are most closely related with anxiety. Indeed, the use of inconsistent measures of religion may contribute to the discrepant findings concerning anxiety (Shreve-Neiger and Edelstein, 2004). Third, the processes linking religion with anxiety and other mental health outcomes are not well understood. For example, one promising theoretical direction suggests that religious practices and cognitions can mediate or moderate the effects of stressors on mental health (e.g., Ellison et al., 2001). However, the links between religion, stress, and mental health remain understudied, particularly with regard to anxiety. Finally, the widespread use of small, localized, and even non-random sampling in studies of religion and anxiety and other mental health outcomes limits generalizability and may contribute to discrepant findings (Shreve-Neiger and Edelstein, 2004).

Our study contributes to the literature on religion and mental health in several ways. We begin by outlining theoretical links between multiple dimensions of religious involvement and feelings of anxiety and tranquility. In contrast to the bulk of previous research, we direct attention to the possible role of religious beliefs—especially belief in the afterlife and in human sinfulness—in shaping these outcomes. Hypotheses derived from this discussion are then tested using data from the 1996 NORC General Social Survey, a nationally representative sample of community-dwelling US adults. Following the presentation of results, the implications of our findings for theoretical perspectives on religion and mental health are discussed, study limitations are noted, and promising directions for future investigation are identified.

Section snippets

Theoretical background and hypotheses

A long tradition of theory and research in the sociology of religion recognizes that religious involvement is a complex, multidimensional phenomenon (e.g., Stark and Glock, 1968, Levin et al., 1995). Nevertheless, issues of conceptualization and measurement remain contentious in the religion-health literature, and three key points deserve special mention. First, there is little agreement on which aspects of religious involvement are most germane to the study of mental and/or physical health;

Data

To test these hypotheses, we analyze data from the 1996 General Social Survey (GSS), conducted by the Chicago-based National Opinion Research Center (Davis and Smith, 1996).1 Between 1972 and 1993, the GSS was conducted annually

Analytic strategy

Our analysis proceeds in several stages. First, we provide descriptive statistics—means, standard deviations, minimum, and maximum values—for all variables used in our analyses (Table 1). Next we estimate a series of multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models to gauge the net effect of religious variables and covariates on anxiety (Table 2) and tranquility (Table 3). For each outcome, models are organized as follows: Model 1 (the baseline model) includes non-religious

Results

Descriptive statistics on all variables used in our analyses are displayed in Table 1. GSS respondents report relatively low levels of anxiety, scoring an average of 1.95 on a scale that ranges from 0 to 7. Those surveyed report moderate levels of tranquility, scoring 4.58 on a scale ranging from 0 to 7. With regard to religious involvement, approximately 75% of GSS respondents believe in an afterlife. On average, they report attending religious services roughly once per month (3.84), and

Discussion

We began this study by noting that, despite the growing body and increased sophistication of studies on religion and mental health, several important issues remain in need of clarification. After identifying key gaps in this body of research, we outlined theoretical links between aspects of religious practice and belief, on the one hand, and anxiety and tranquility on the other. And we tested a series of hypotheses based on these arguments, using data from a nationwide (US) survey of adults.

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    This research was supported by a Grant from the National Institute on Aging (R01 AG18432) to the lead author. An earlier version of this study was presented at the 2004 meetings of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, San Francisco. The authors thank Robert Hummer, Neal Krause, Marc Musick, Kenneth Pargament, Mark Regnerus, and Catherine Ross for helpful comments and suggestions. However, the authors are solely responsible for any errors of fact or interpretation that remain.

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