Religious Involvement and Happiness: Assessing the Mediating Role of Compassion and Helping Others
Abstract
Research reveals that different aspects of religious involvement are associated with happiness. However, researchers have yet to provide an overarching theoretical explanation for how multiple dimensions of religion might be associated with happiness. The purpose of this study is to develop and test a conceptual model that includes the following core hypotheses: (1) people who attend worship services more often tend to be more committed to their faith; (2) people who are more committed to their faith are more likely to be compassionate; (3) compassionate individuals are more likely to provide emotional support to significant others; and (4) people who provide support to others tend to be happier. Data from a recent nationwide survey in the United States (N = 3,010) provides support for each hypothesis. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.
Findings from a vast body of research suggest that greater involvement in religion is associated with greater happiness. Because religion is a complex, multidimensional phenomenon, it is not surprising to find that researchers have found many dimensions of religion associated with happiness, including more frequent church attendance, more frequent prayer, positive images of God, a greater sense of meaning in life, living in nations with a greater overall level of religious involvement, greater belief in a world that is inherently good, stronger self-identification as a religious person, and a stronger sense of intrinsic religiousness.
The breadth of research on religion and happiness is impressive because it helps build greater confidence in the validity of this relationship. However, this breadth also comes at a cost. Looking across the wide array of dimensions of religion that have been examined so far makes it difficult to come up with a convincing theoretical explanation for how religious involvement might be associated with happiness. This is why some have concluded that little theoretical guidance is found in empirical research on religion and happiness.
The purpose of the current study is to address this gap in the literature by developing and testing a conceptual model that specifies one way in which multiple dimensions of religious involvement bolster feelings of happiness. Before discussing the specific hypotheses embedded in this conceptual scheme, it is important to cast this model in a broader theoretical context. This is accomplished below by briefly identifying three underlying assumptions that form the foundation of the conceptual model evaluated in this study.
Theoretical Assumptions
The first assumption is that, at its base, religion is a social phenomenon. This perspective is over a hundred years old. Early theorists such as Georg Simmel and James Mark Baldwin argued that religion is essentially a relationship among people who share a common faith tradition, rather than an isolated personal experience.
The second assumption follows from the first. If religion is essentially a social phenomenon, then religious institutions should promote virtues that bolster and maintain the social relationships within them. There is ample evidence to support this view. Many faith traditions extol the virtues of loving others, helping those in need, and forgiving transgressions. These virtues lend a special quality to church-based social ties and provide one reason why social support from fellow church members may be especially effective.
The third assumption is an extension of the previous two. Being part of a faith tradition and verbally committing to its beliefs is not enough. Instead, beliefs about how people should relate to others should be carried over into actual behavior. Thus, the conceptual model presented assumes that when people practice the interpersonal virtues promoted by their faith tradition, they are likely to be happier.
A Conceptual Model of Religious Involvement and Happiness
The conceptual model developed for this study includes several components. First, for clarity, the elements of the measurement model are not shown even though a full measurement model was estimated empirically. Second, the model was assessed after the effects of age, sex, education, and marital status were statistically controlled. All model paths were estimated, but the focus is on the four hypotheses: (1) people who attend worship services more often will be more deeply committed to their faith; (2) individuals who are more deeply committed to their faith will be more compassionate; (3) people who are more compassionate will be more likely to provide emotional support to their social network members; (4) giving more emotional support to significant others is associated with greater happiness.
Church Attendance and Religious Commitment
Religious commitment plays an important role in the conceptual model developed in this study. If religion promotes better interpersonal relationships, then people will reap these benefits if they are committed to a faith tradition. It is therefore important to identify what promotes greater religious commitment. While there are several ways people become more committed to their faith, frequent attendance at worship services is proposed as an important factor for four main reasons.
First, more frequent church attendance is associated with greater religious commitment because social worlds, including religious ones, are constructed through social interaction. Attending worship services provides an opportunity for such interaction, and reinforces the importance of being committed to the faith.
Second, the strength of the relationship between church attendance and religious commitment will depend on the frequency of attendance. Commitment to religion, rather than being a one-time affair, must be continually reinforced through regular social interaction with like-minded others.
Third, confidence in religious explanations is strengthened when others express their confidence in them. Attending services fosters a sense of collective identity, conformity, and belonging, making it more likely that people become deeply committed to their faith.
Fourth, empirical studies have found that more frequent church attendance is associated with greater religious commitment or intrinsic religiousness.
Religious Commitment and Compassion
If religious commitment arises from relationships among the faithful, then the fundamental tenets of faith traditions should promote positive interpersonal relationships. While several teachings promote better social relationships, a basic premise of the study is that sound social relationships are fostered by encouraging church members to be more compassionate. Compassion is defined as an attitude toward others that includes caring, concern, tenderness, and an orientation toward supporting and understanding others, especially those in need.
There are two reasons why religious commitment may promote compassion. First, individuals have an inherent need to belong to social groups and will adhere to group norms as a condition of acceptance. If religious in-groups value compassion, members will strive to be more compassionate.
Second, being compassionate can be challenging, especially when the other person is perceived as responsible for their situation. Here, religious commitment can motivate individuals to feel compassion by reinforcing the belief that following the tenets of one’s faith leads to the best outcomes.
Evidence from prior research suggests that greater religious commitment is associated with greater compassion across diverse samples. However, there may be qualifications: some studies suggest religious commitment may increase compassion toward in-group members but not necessarily out-group members.
Compassion and Providing Emotional Support to Others
The process of social support is complex and can sometimes have unintended negative effects. Effective support providers must possess social skills, with compassion being perhaps the most fundamental. Understanding another person’s needs and the best way to provide support requires sympathetic perspective-taking. Compassionate people are likely to be especially effective support providers.
Studies have found that people who are more compassionate report providing emotional support to others more often. Yet, some research indicates that the desire to help may be more readily extended to in-group members than to out-group members.
Providing Emotional Support to Others and Happiness
Providing support to others is hypothesized to be associated with greater happiness. Earlier work has outlined several ways in which support providers benefit. First, helping others enhances a provider’s self-worth and may garner respect within religious communities, thereby bolstering self-esteem, which is associated with greater happiness.
Second, helping others provides psychological respite from the helper’s own difficulties, allowing renewed vigor in addressing personal problems.
Third, witnessing the benefits of one’s help may foster a sense of control or efficacy, which is also linked to happiness.
While little direct research has examined the link between providing support and happiness, findings from cross-national studies suggest that people who provide support to others more often tend to have higher levels of subjective well-being.
Methods
Sample
Data for this study come from the Landmark Spirituality and Health Survey (LSHS), a nationwide face-to-face survey of adults aged 18 and older residing in the coterminous United States, conducted in 2014. The sampling frame was based on postal addresses and direct enumeration where address lists were unavailable.
Sampling occurred in three stages: pooling counties and metropolitan areas into National Frame Areas (NFAs), partitioning NFAs into Census tract segments, and then sampling housing units within these segments. The response rate was 50 percent, with 3,010 completed interviews. The sample was divided into three age groups: 18-40, 41-64, and 65 and older. Item non-response was low, and complete data were made available using the full information maximum likelihood (FIML) method.
Descriptive analyses indicate the average age was 51.2 years, 43% male, 47% married, and an average of 13.5 years of schooling. Most participants identified as Christian, with smaller proportions identifying with other religions, none, agnostic, or atheist.
Measures
Several latent constructs were used in the model:
Happiness was measured with a three-item version of the Subjective Happiness Scale, scored on a seven-point scale, with higher scores indicating greater happiness.
Church Attendance was measured with a single item about frequency of attendance at religious services in the previous year, coded from never to several times a week.
Religious Commitment was assessed with three items about the extent to which faith shapes thinking and action, carrying religious beliefs into daily life, and religious beliefs informing one’s whole approach to life.
Compassion was measured using four items reflecting compassion for all people, adapted for this study from existing scales.
Emotional Support Provided to Others included three items about providing emotional support to family members and friends.
Demographic control variables included age and education (coded continuously), and sex and marital status (binary).
Results
Model Estimation Issues
The model was evaluated with maximum likelihood estimation. Preliminary tests showed violations of multivariate normality, so raw scores were converted to normal scores before estimation. Goodness-of-fit was assessed using the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), which indicated a good fit for the model.
Reliability Estimates
Internal consistency of the multi-item constructs was evaluated using standardized factor loadings and measurement error terms. Most items exceeded the commonly used threshold, and overall reliability estimates for the scales were good.
Religious Involvement and Happiness
Findings indicate that each of the proposed hypotheses is supported. People who attend worship services more often are more deeply committed to their faith; those more committed are more likely to feel compassion for others; compassionate people provide support to others more often; and providing support to others is associated with greater happiness.
Although the direct effect of church attendance on happiness is weak, when combined with indirect effects through commitment, compassion, and support, the total effect is more substantial. This decomposition shows that the majority of the effect of church attendance on happiness is indirect.
Similarly, both the direct and indirect effects of religious commitment and compassion on happiness are significant and substantial. Most of the relationship between compassion and happiness comes from feeling compassion itself, but a sizeable proportion is also explained through the behavioral manifestation of providing support to others.
Comparing direct and indirect effects provides insight into whether feeling compassion is sufficient or whether translating compassion into behavior is necessary for happiness. The data suggest that most of the benefit comes from feeling compassion, but including more behavioral manifestations in future measures might show a bigger impact of behavior.
Supplementary Analyses
Additional analyses addressed the directionality between church attendance and commitment. Using data from a separate longitudinal study, results indicate that more frequent church attendance leads to greater religious commitment rather than the reverse, although some reciprocal effects exist.
Discussion
Aristotle argued that the primary aim of life is happiness, motivating research into sources of happiness. This study finds that providing support to others is one such source, motivated in part by religious life.
The study’s findings are noteworthy for integrating multiple facets of religion into a conceptual model explaining their effect on happiness, using nationally representative data, and empirically linking social relationships in religious contexts to the pursuit of happiness.
Several limitations remain. Only one type of helping behavior—providing emotional support to family and friends—was assessed. Future research should investigate other types of helping and whether they also lead to happiness. There may also be a point where providing support becomes burdensome, potentially diminishing happiness. Only the virtue of compassion was considered; other virtues like forgiveness may also play an important role.
Researchers should address study limitations, including the cross-sectional design, possible response biases, and limited generalizability owing to the primarily Christian sample. Subsequent research should test these relationships in other religious contexts and after controlling for potential biases.
Josiah Royce, a leading philosopher, argued that humans are bound to others by spiritual links that cannot be broken, highlighting the common plight and importance of social relationships in religious life. This research empirically examines such insights, linking them to the universal quest for happiness.
Note
Some may argue that certain compassion items in this study reflect behaviors rather than only feelings or intentions, raising potential concerns about overlapping measurement with helping others. Analysis after excluding these items did not materially change the key associations,Inaxaplin supporting the distinctiveness of the constructs.