Social studies of subjective well-being in the context of spirituality and religiousness

Abstract

The transformation of religious life in Russian society, which has been occurring during the last two decades, defines the need for an academic reconsideration of the influence of religion on both the macro and micro-levels of social reality, including the influence on the quality of people's lives. Studies of religiousness and the well-being of the people has become a traditional field for analysis in foreign humanities and social sciences since the late 1980's. In Russian sociology, the problem of the interconnection between quality of life and individual spirituality and religiousness is characterized by a lack of studies and a lack of relevant methodological instruments. This article presents a brief review of contemporary foreign studies dedicated to the empirical exploration of life quality and the influence of individual spirituality and religiosity on subjective well-being. Said review provides an idea of the various approaches towards the operationalization of well-being in empirical studies and the scales used within them. Special attention is paid to describing the connection and dependence between variables that reflect cognitive and affective aspects of subjective well-being, as well as the factors which affect believers' evaluation of their own life. The authors note the influence of confessed religion, interconfessional peculiarities, values and common cultural context on how people perceive well-being and how they choose the necessary strategy for evaluating the latter. The end of the article presents conclusions in relation to the possibility of studying the influence of spirituality and religiousness on subjective well-being in the context of Russia.