No evidence of longitudinal association between religiosity and psychological well-being: Challenging prevailing assumptions

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the bidirectional relationship between religiosity and psychological well-being in a sample of American adults. The study used data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study, collected at three time points over approximately 20 years. The results showed a weak positive correlation between religiosity and psychological well-being at the between-person level. However, the results of the random-intercept cross-lagged panel model revealed that within-person changes in religiosity did not predict future changes in psychological well-being, and vice versa. The findings suggest that these variables are not significant predictors of each other, at least in the long term, and that the relationship between the two is most likely not causal. These findings challenge the commonly held belief that religion is beneficial to well-being and suggest the need for further longitudinal research and more rigorous statistical methods.