A Complex Simplicity: The Relationship of Religiosity and Nonreligiosity to Life Satisfaction

Abstract

Most previous research purportedly indicates a stable linear relationship between (non)religiosity and life satisfaction, but a review of these studies reveals a less consistent relationship and several conceptual and methodological issues. More recent research adds to the relationship's complexity by indicating that certain government regulations, social norms of religiosity, and a country's level of societal development interact with the relationship between individual (non)religiosity and life satisfaction. At the individual level, nonbelief certainty, nonreligious identity, belief in science, secular sources of meaning in life, and nonreligious group memberships appear to be central to nonreligious individuals’ life satisfaction. These findings emphasize the need for considering interactions with context factors, for differentiating between (non)religious subgroups, for multidimensional conceptualizations of nonreligiosity beyond the mere absence of religiosity, and for testing for nonlinear relationships. When these aspects are included in empirical research, differences in the level of life satisfaction between religious and nonreligious individuals largely disappear.