Religion and Psychiatry: Beyond Boundaries by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2009-10-23T04:49:29+00:00

positive (higher levels of religiosity associated with better mental health). On balance,

Bergin found only a modest overall relationship between religiousness and better mental

health (r ¼ 0.09). That the relationship should consistently be modest across studies is by no

means an indictment of the psychological significance of religion, given the substantial

number of other variables in a person’s life that can impact their psychological functioning.

Bergin draws from the theoretical literature on the multidimensional nature of religion to

explain the diversity of findings, suggesting that the various components of religiosity might

be organized hierarchically, with a general (‘g’) factor and several specific (‘s’) factors.

Witter, Stock, Okun and Haring focused on religiosity and subjective well-being, meta-

analyzing the results of 28 studies [130]. Similar to Bergin’s examination, a moderate

overall relationship was found (0.16). This meta-analysis did explore the possibility that

different approaches to measuring religiousness and subjective well-being may influence

the results, differentiating between measures of ‘religious activity’ (e.g., church attendance)

and ‘religiosity’ (e.g., self-reported importance of religion), and between five ways of

measuring positive psychological functioning (life satisfaction, morale, well-being, quality

of life, and happiness). A significant difference was found between measures of religiosity

(0.13 for religiosity and 0.18 for religious activity), but not for different approaches to

subjective well-being.

After an intermission of nearly two decades, Glenn Sanders and I meta-analyzed data

from a sample of 35 studies, specifically addressing the topic of definitions of religiosity and

mental health [30]. Like the previous two meta-analyses, a moderate positive overall

relationship was found (0.10) between religiosity and mental health. Definitions of

religiosity were categorized either as institutional (e.g., church attendance), as ideological

(e.g., orthodoxy), or in terms of personal devotion (e.g., religious internalization). Defini-

tions of mental health were categorized into indicators of psychological distress (e.g.,

3 For a meta-analysis of epic proportions, see Richard, Bond & Stokes-Zoota’s study [125].

4 Employing the PsycINFO and Academic Search Premiere databases, using the keywords ‘meta-analysis’ and

‘religion,’ ‘religiosity,’ and ‘religiousness.’

4.1

RELIGION AND MENTAL HEALTH

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depression), life satisfaction (e.g., subjective well-being), or self-actualization (e.g., a sense

of purpose in life). The average affect size was significantly impacted by both the adoption

of different definitions of religiosity and the adoption of different definitions of mental

health by the researchers. Depending on what combination of definitions were employed,

the relationships between religiosity and mental health were either negative (a mean effect

size of 0.03 for the relationship between institutional religion and the amelioration of

psychological distress), non-significant (ideological religion and psychological distress), or

positive (the mean effect size statistic of the strongest positive relationship was 0.32,

between religious devotion and self-actualization). These results illustrate the considerable

impact of definitional issues on scientific examinations of this subject.

4.1.5 IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

The multidimensional nature of religion and mental health is reflected in studies such as

Frazier, Mintz and Mobley’s [131]. In this study, the authors employed a three-dimensional

approach to religion (organizational, non organizational, and subjective religiosity) and a

six-dimensional approach to mental health (self-acceptance, positive relations with others,

autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth), allowing the

researchers to examine the possibility that certain forms of religion may have stronger or

weaker relationships with specific forms of mental health. The World Health Organization’s

work on

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