While several psychological studies have pointed towards the better emotional health of believers as compared to nonbelievers, citing reasons such as social support from a sense of belonging to a congregation, or stress reducing qualities from knowing a larger force is looking out for them, a newly published study has challenged those findings.
Assessing answers from a diverse group of respondents, the study, which was published in the journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, has concluded that religious and secular people have the same levels of mental health.
“The impaired mental health stigma against secular (individuals) is, at the very least, an exaggeration,” wrote Jon T. Moore of the Veterans Affairs Health Care System in Palo Alto, California, and Mark Leach of the University of Louisville.
As far as mental health is concerned, it seems irresolute beliefs are worse than an utter lack of belief.
With the understanding that past research on this topic has largely excluded nonbelievers, Moore and Leach utilized online forums to generate a variety of believers and nonbelievers. Their total sample of 4,667 respondents -- which was skewed toward youngsters, with a mean average of 27 years -- consisted of atheists (who comprised 37 percent), agnostics (who comprised 19 percent), Christians (who comprised 11 percent), spiritual nonreligious people (who comprised 10 percent), Buddhists (who comprised 3 percent), Jews (who comprised 1 percent) and a smidgen of adherents of other faiths.
Every respondent filled out a series of surveys that assessed, among other things, the significance of religion in their daily lives as well as their level of existential dogmatism. The latter was assessed by where the respondents clocked on a seven-point scale, starting from “absolutely certain God does not exist” to “absolutely certain god exists”, with “God’s nonexistence or existence is unknowable” placed in the center.
Three different surveys for mental health assessed the respondents’ sense of overall life satisfaction, feeling of gratitude and ability to pursue their goals. Another survey assessed the respondents’ satisfaction with their respective social support groups.
While going through the numbers, both researchers saw a number of surprising results, including respondents who were certain of God’s existence or nonexistence having the same levels of mental health. Staunch believers came out ahead of staunch atheists only on one measure – they seemed to reflect higher levels of gratitude. For both believers and nonbelievers, researchers concluded that the effect of certainty on mental health was traceable but small, accounting to roughly one or two percent of the variance in mental health. This finding suggests that even though belief does act as a protective factor for a person’s mental health, its potential to serve in that capacity is definitely overrated. Another interesting aspect of the study was that it found those who declared God’s existence to be answerable, showed certain mental health advantages.
“Self-declared agnostics showed greater mental health values than participants who were only somewhat certain about God’s existence or nonexistence. … Yet, A person’s available social support is by far the strongest predictor of mental health in the current analysis,” the study said.
While this support is often associated with a religious community, similar positive effects can also be felt if one regularly participates in a political party, neighborhood organization or PTA.
Overall, the researchers concluded, “Grounds for declaring that there is a substantial mental health disparity between religious and secular groups were not supported.”
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