The new Relationships in America study has a nifty table on the relation of happiness to regular involvement in a religious community.
The core finding: "frequency of attendance at religious services has a stronger effect on overall happiness than either belonging to an organized religion or self-reported personal religiosity."
The magnitude of the effect is also pretty impressive: nearly half of those who regularly attend religious services say they are very happy.
2 comments:
Is this self-selection? (or, which comes first, attendance or attitude?)
People who do worthwhile things with others tend to be happier. Religious institutions are the institutions in society, besides families, in which this most often and most purely happens.
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