Religious Orientation and Its Relationship to Suicidality: A Study in One of the Least Religious Countries

Bob Lew,Paul Yip,Jie Zhang,Steven Stack,Jenny Huen,Lu Yuan,Cun-Xian Jia,Thambu Maniam

doi:10.3390/rel9010015

Abstract

The relationship between religious orientation and suicidality can be more complex in samples of low religious rate. The present study was conducted in China, one of the least religious countries, with the purpose of exploring different aspects of religious orientation and their relationships to suicidality. Among a university sample of 2074 respondents, 122 respondents reported being religious and responded to our measures of religious orientation and suicidality. Extrinsic religious orientation, while being distinct from intrinsic religious orientation, could be subdivided into personally-oriented and socially-oriented dimensions to predict suicidality in our sample. Results from regression analysis showed that respondents with higher intrinsic religious orientation and lower personally-oriented extrinsic religious orientation are more likely to have lower suicidality. These findings support that intrinsic orientation is embodied with positive outcomes whereas extrinsic orientation is embodied with negative outcomes. It is noteworthy that socially-oriented extrinsic religious orientation did not predict suicidality in our sample, as it was speculated that the role of socially-oriented extrinsic religious orientation cannot function when there are few religious people to socialize with in the community.

Highlights

The relationship between religion and suicide was well noted by a French sociologist, Durkheim (Durkheim 1951), in his work about the phenomenon and social causes of suicide
The findings of the present study provide preliminary evidence of a three-factor model of religious orientation and reveal that the three different aspects of religious orientation are differentially associated with suicidality
Exploratory factor analysis showed a reasonable fit of the scale items to the three-factor structure for the measure of religious orientation, which can be regarded as socially-oriented extrinsic religious orientation, personally-oriented extrinsic religious orientation, and intrinsic religious orientation

Summary

Introduction

The relationship between religion and suicide was well noted by a French sociologist, Durkheim (Durkheim 1951), in his work about the phenomenon and social causes of suicide. Based on the data from some Western European countries, Durkheim concluded that Catholics and Jews had lower suicide rates than Protestants. He proposed that the influence of religion on the rate of suicide is stronger when compared to the individual’s education level. In the later part of the 20th century and early 21st century, research in the psychology of religion made use of various self-report instruments to assess the construct of religiosity, including religious beliefs and practices, religious attitudes, religious orientation, religious development, religious commitment and involvement, religious experience, religious values, religiousness, religious coping, religious fundamentalism, religious attribution, etc

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