Could Wealth Make Religiosity Less Needed for Subjective Well-Being? A Dual-Path Effect Hypothesis of Religious Faith Versus Practice.

Xiaofang Zheng,Hao Chen,Mengjiao Song

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01636

Abstract

Religiosity is important for religious people to maintain their subjective well-being (SWB). We propose a dual-path effect hypothesis to explore different working mechanisms of religious faith and practice on benefiting people’s SWB. Religious faith can promote SWB mainly via an intrinsic meaning-making path although religious practice can promote SWB via both an intrinsic meaning-making path and an extrinsic capital-accumulating path. If the dual-path effect hypothesis stands, then the role of religious practice in influencing SWB should be partly substituted by good economic status, but the role of religious faith should not. Then, only the effect of religious practice would be moderated by wealth. Results show that people’s individual income and national GDP have significant moderating effects on the relationship between religious practice and SWB, but they had no moderating effect on the association between religious faith and SWB, indicating wealth could be an alternative source of accumulating capital and social resources between religious practice and SWB. Results provide important evidence for the dual-path effect hypothesis. The findings uniquely contribute to the literature of religiosity, SWB, and their connections with wealth. Implications for future research are also discussed.

Highlights

Numerous studies demonstrate that religion is a powerful buffer for humans against fear, sadness, anxiety, and other suffering from the outer world and is of great help in maintaining subjective well-being (SWB) (e.g., Smith et al, 2003; Ryff et al, 2004; Harding et al, 2005; Inglehart, 2010; Diener et al, 2011; Shiah et al, 2015)
We proposed a dual-path effect hypothesis: Religiosity could promote SWB through an intrinsic meaning-making path and an extrinsic capital-accumulating path; religious faith could boost SWB mainly via an intrinsic meaning-making path, religious practice can promote SWB via both paths
We propose the dual-path effect hypothesis referring to intrinsic–extrinsic orientations of religiosity to clarify the different working paths of religious faith and practice regarding promoting SWB

Summary

Introduction

Numerous studies demonstrate that religion is a powerful buffer for humans against fear, sadness, anxiety, and other suffering from the outer world and is of great help in maintaining subjective well-being (SWB) (e.g., Smith et al, 2003; Ryff et al, 2004; Harding et al, 2005; Inglehart, 2010; Diener et al, 2011; Shiah et al, 2015). Longitudinal studies find that religiosity decreases with the increase in economic growth (Barro and Mitchell, 2004; McCleary and Barro, 2006) as well as with the increase in individuals’ income (Herzer and Strulik, 2017) It seems religiosity is less needed for richer people and residents in richer nations. There is no theory accounting for this phenomenon from the perspective of the different working mechanisms of religious faith and practice We fill this gap and propose a dual-path effect hypothesis to illustrate the different functions of religious faith and practice on SWB while taking the condition of individual and national wealth into account

Objectives

Methods

Conclusion