Leaving my religion: Understanding the relationship between religious disaffiliation, health, and well-being

Experiences of caring after religious disaffiliation: A qualitative study based on the DEW model

BACKGROUND AND AIM

Leaving a religious community may occasionally lead to suffering in a human being's life and difficult existential life issues, such as loss of social relationships, identity and well-being. Only a few studies have been conducted on what kind of care and support human beings who are suffering need in this context. The aim of this study was to increase the understanding of what a human being perceives as caring after religious disaffiliation.

METHODS

In-depth interviews were conducted with 18 participants who had left different religious communities in Finland. The material was analysed through a deductive thematic analysis according to Braun and Clarke, based on the Dressing an existential wound model by Rehnsfeldt and Arman.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION

The results show that what human beings experience as caring after religious disaffiliation is encountering a care professional who understands the needs of someone in this life situation. Based on these needs, caring is described through seven themes. Care professionals need to understand the impact religious disaffiliation may have on clients' lives and respond to their needs. Understanding the suffering of a human being calls for a care professional's holistic view and caring for the whole human being, including spiritual dimensions. This new knowledge can be used by care professionals to develop caring for clients after religious disaffiliation.

Health trajectories of individuals who quit active religious attendance: analysis of four prospective cohort studies in the United States

PURPOSE

To examine whether trajectories of health (depressive symptoms, psychological wellbeing, self-rated health, and body mass index) and health behaviors (smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, and cannabis use) changed for individuals who first reported at least monthly religious attendance and then in subsequent study waves reported no active religious attendance.

METHODS

Data were from four cohort studies from the United States collected between 1996 and 2018: National Longitudinal Survey of 1997 (NLSY1997); National Longitudinal Survey of Young Adults (NLSY-YA); Transition to Adulthood Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID-TA); and Health and Retirement Study (HRS) with a total n = 6592 individuals and 37,743 person-observations.

RESULTS

None of the 10-year trajectories of health or health behaviors changed for the worse after the change from active to inactive religious attendance. Instead, the adverse trends were observed already during the time of active religious attendance.

CONCLUSION

These results suggest that religious disengagement is a correlate-not a cause-of a life course characterized by poorer health and health behaviors. The religious decline caused by people leaving their religion is unlikely to influence population health.

Life Course Religious Attendance and Cognitive Health at Midlife: Exploring Gendered Contingencies

A growing body of literature suggests that religious attendance might mitigate processes of cognitive decline associated with aging. However, few studies have made adequate linkages with the life course perspective. We draw from over 35 years of prospective panel data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (1979-2015) to assess the associations of cumulative exposures to religious attendance over the life course (childhood and midlife) for self-rated cognitive health and working memory (as assessed by the Serial 7s task). Our results suggest that midlife adults who attended religious services consistently between childhood and adulthood had higher self-rated cognitive health and better working memory. Women were also found to receive stronger benefits to self-rated cognitive health from consistent religious practice between childhood and adulthood. This pattern of findings allows for greater reflection into the neural enrichment and neural depletion arguments proposed to explain the religion/cognitive health link in previous research.

On religious ambiguity: Childhood family religiosity and adult flourishing in a twin sample

Ambiguity is an important notion in sociology, denoting situations where social actors and groups carry on without shared meaning. The current article applies this concept to the context of religiosity during people's upbringing, recognizing that multiple factors make family-level religion a complex experience. Indeed, though recent research portrays household religiosity in childhood as a sociocultural exposure with long-term implications for well-being, existing studies have yet to incorporate multiple inputs to consider the cohesiveness of that exposure. Using twin data from a national sample, we investigate whether consistency in recalled household religiosity is associated with mid-life flourishing. Multi-level linear regression models reveal that similarity in twin reports matter, above and beyond the actual level of religiosity individuals report and net of dis/similarity across other childhood recollections. We conclude that coherence in religious upbringing-whether religion was understood to be important or not-is a key ingredient for thriving later in life and then reflect more broadly on manifestations of sociocultural ambiguity in families and in larger social units.

Depression, PTSD, and suicidal ideation among ex-ultra-Orthodox individuals in Israel

Introduction: Disaffiliating from an ultra-Orthodox society is complex and challenging. The process includes dealing with culture shock, traumatic experiences, education gaps, and disconnection from familiar surroundings. Thus, ex-ultra-Orthodox individuals (ex-ULTOIs) may face loneliness, lack of belongingness, and loss of meaning, which may relate to high psychological distress such as depression and suicide ideation. In the present study, we sought to shed light on the distress of ex-ULTOIs in Israel and to understand the disaffiliation-related characteristics that may relate to their distress levels.Method: The sample comprised 755 participants, aged 19-54, who left their ultra-Orthodox Jewish lifestyle and communities. Participants completed self-report questionnaires tapping depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, suicide ideation and behaviour, as well as demographics and disaffiliation-related characteristics.Results: Nearly half of the sample (N = 332, 45.9%) reported symptom intensity meeting the current criteria for major depressive disorder. Moreover, 46.7% reported symptoms meeting PTSD criteria, and 34.5% reported having suicidal ideations in the past year. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that the intensity of past negative life events, the nature of motives for disaffiliation, and the longer duration of the disaffiliation process contributed to the severity of distress.Conclusions: The study's findings reveal that ex-ULTOIs suffer from high mental pain levels, particularly depression, PTSD, and suicidal risk. Importantly, experiencing disaffiliation as traumatic and longer durations of the process may facilitate greater mental pain and distress symptoms. These findings emphasize that ex-ULTOIs must be continually assessed, especially when their disaffiliation processes are experienced as traumatic.

Religion and Pandemic Weight Gain: A Refuge from the Storm?

The COVID-19 pandemic was an inherently stressful global crisis that was associated with weight gain for over 40% of the American public. Building on previous research, we draw on recently collected national survey data from the United States to examine the effects of religious attendance (both in-person and virtual), the sense of divine control, and religious/spiritual (R/S) struggles on pandemic weight gain. A series of logistic regression models were conducted. Our findings suggest that divine control and monthly in-person religious attendance were associated with a lower risk of pandemic weight gain, while R/S struggles were associated with a higher risk of weight gain. Our results reveal the complex role that religiosity can play with respect to pandemic weight gain.

The roles and impacts of worldviews in the context of meditation-related challenges

Previous research has shown that worldviews can serve as a coping response to periods of difficulty or struggle, and worldviews can also change on account of difficulty. This paper investigates the impacts worldviews have on the nature and trajectory of meditation-related challenges, as well as how worldviews change or are impacted by such challenges. The context of meditation-related challenges provided by data from the Varieties of Contemplative Experience research project offers a unique insight into the dynamics between worldviews and meditation. Buddhist meditation practitioners and meditation experts interviewed for the study report how, for some, worldviews can serve as a risk factor impacting the onset and trajectory of meditation-related challenges, while, for others, worldviews (e.g., being given a worldview, applying a worldview, or changing a worldview) were reported as a remedy for mitigating challenging experiences and/or their associated distress. Buddhist meditation practitioners and teachers in the contemporary West are also situated in a cultural context in which religious and scientific worldviews and explanatory frameworks are dually available. Furthermore, the context of "Buddhist modernism" has also promoted a unique configuration in which the theory and practice of Buddhism is presented as being closely compatible with science. We identify and discuss the various impacts that religious and scientific worldviews have on meditation practitioners and meditation teachers who navigate periods of challenge associated with the practice.

Religious residue: The impact of childhood religious socialization on the religiosity of nones in France, Germany, Great Britain, and Sweden

One of the distinguishing features of religious life in Western Europe in recent decades has been the sharp increase in the proportion of people who identify as unaffiliated with any religious tradition (religious nones). Non-affiliation entails a rejection of religious belonging, not the absence of all religious belief and practice; yet the determinants of religiosity among nones have not been fully explored. Drawing on data from the 1998-2018 ISSP surveys in four West European countries (France, Germany, Great Britain, and Sweden), I test the impact of childhood religious socialization on the religiosity of unaffiliated adults by comparing lifelong nones, who were never religiously affiliated, with disaffiliates, who were raised within a religious tradition and have since exited organized religious life. Disaffiliates are consistently more religious than lifelong nones due to religious residue from childhood, with greater residue found among those who were more religiously committed as children. Religious decline among the unaffiliated over time, combined with the increasing proportion of lifelong nones and second-generation lifelong nones who lack even an inherited, minimal religious residue, suggest that secularization will gather momentum.

Changes in Spiritual but Not Religious Identity and Well-Being in Emerging Adulthood in the United States: Pathways to Health Sameness?

The "spiritual but not religious" (SBNR) are a growing group in the religious landscape of the United States. Thousands of studies to date have been devoted to the study of religion and health, but far less attention has been given to the study of the "spiritual but not religious." In this study, we address this gap by using two waves of longitudinal data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (2005-2008). We assess whether within-person changes in SBNR identity are associated with health and mental health in emerging adulthood and consider several pathways that may account for observed differences. Results suggest that consistently identifying as SBNR was associated with worse physical and mental health relative to youth that were consistently religious. Using parametric mediation analyses, we found evidence that three of our four proposed mediators (religious attendance, sense of closeness to God, and religious doubt, but not life meaning) partially explained these mental health differences. This study therefore makes an important advance in assessing the health implications of (non)-religion/spirituality early in the life course.

"Living Between Two Different Worlds": Experiences of Leaving a High-Cost Religious Group

The aim of this interdisciplinary study is to gain a comprehensive understanding of individuals' subjective experiences after leaving a high-cost religious group and how these experiences have affected their lives. In-depth interviews were done with 18 participants who had left different religious communities in Finland. The interviews were analysed through a thematic analysis. The results show that religious disaffiliation is a life change that may affect an individual's life in profound ways. Life after being a member of a high-cost group may involve experiences of fear, guilt, sorrow, pain, loss and even suffering on an existential level. These experiences can have serious implications for one's well-being and health. However, life after religious disaffiliation also includes many positive aspects, such as experiences of joy, freedom, relief, gratitude and empowerment.

Identifying well-being profiles and resilience characteristics in ex-members of fundamentalist Christian faith communities

There is a lack of empirical research on the heterogeneity in well-being of individuals who disaffiliated (i.e., left or were expelled) from an exclusionary and demanding faith community. Thus, little quantitative knowledge exists on factors related to resilience in these individuals. Therefore, the study aims were twofold: (1) to identify profiles of well-being in ex-members; and (2) to examine the characteristics of the identified profiles. A cross-sectional online survey assessed ex-members of various fundamentalist Christian faith communities. Latent profile analysis identified latent heterogeneity within the sample. Well-being profile indicators included perceived stress, psychopathological symptoms, affect, and satisfaction with life. Profile-related characteristics included socio-demographics (i.e., gender, age), membership (i.e., reason for joining, duration, extent of involvement, reasons for exit, social support during exit, and time since the exit), and resilience-supporting resources (i.e., social support, self-esteem, sense of coherence, personality, socio-economic status). In the final sample (N = 622, Mage = 41.34 years; 65.60% female), four distinct profiles were identified: resilient (25.70%), normative (36.40%), vulnerable (27.20%), and adverse (10.70%). The resilient profile was characterised by higher age, lower reporting of abuse or maltreatment as exit reason, and highest levels of resilience-supporting resources. Ex-members of fundamentalist Christian faith communities differ substantially in their well-being. Membership aspects were only weakly related to current well-being, with the exception of the exit reason of abuse or maltreatment. This study provided novel quantitative insights into the well-being profiles of individuals who disaffiliated from a fundamentalist Christian faith community in German-speaking countries.

Matters of the Heart: Childhood Maltreatment, Religious Transitions, and Cardiovascular-Related Problems over the Life Course

Objectives:

Childhood maltreatment is associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular-related problems, the leading cause of death in the United States. Drawing from cumulative inequality theory, this study considers whether transitions in religious attendance moderate the deleterious impact of childhood maltreatment on long-term cardiovascular risk.

Methods:

We utilize over 35 years of prospective panel data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth from the United States (1979–2015).

Results:

Our findings suggest that decreases in religious attendance between adolescence and adulthood (from high to low, and high to moderate attendance) were associated with elevated cardiovascular-related risk for those abused as children. Neither stable high attendance nor increases in attendance buffered against the impact of childhood abuse on cardiovascular-related problems.

Discussion:

We illustrate the importance of incorporating the role of stability and change in religious attendance across the life course and suggest directions for future research.

Does Religious Participation Predict Future Expectations About Health? Using a Life Course Framework to Test Multiple Mechanisms

Though an impressive array of health outcomes has been studied, research within the field of religion and health has not yet considered how religious involvement may affect future expectations about health. This is a significant shortcoming because the teachings of many religions direct adherent's focus to the distant future, and future self-ratings of health are a known predictor of subjective life expectancy and eventual mortality risk. Recognizing the need for a life course approach to conceptualizing patterns of religious involvement, we assess how stability or change in religious attendance from childhood to adulthood structures individual expectations of future health. Drawing on data from the 2017 Values and Beliefs of the American Public Study (Baylor Religion Survey Wave 5), we find that stable high (weekly) attendance between childhood and adulthood is associated with higher future health expectations. Parametric mediation analyses conducted in the counterfactual framework suggest that this association is explained by the tendency of frequent stable attenders to have (a) higher levels of beliefs in the sense of divine control and (b) a lower likelihood of engaging in harmful health behaviors (smoking).

Grieving the Living: The Social Death of Former Jehovah's Witnesses

Addressing a relative lack of research investigating the experiences of individuals who have left the Jehovah's Witnesses (JW), this research utilizes a social identity approach to examine qualitatively, the process of transitioning towards post-JW life, experiences of ostracism and perceived threats to self-identity. Semi-structured interviews were carried out in the homes of six former JWs, and transcripts were analysed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Narratives suggest that experiences of ostracism following religious exit can be associated with diminished mental health, while having a sense of agency and establishing new (online) social connections may help mitigate adverse consequences. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Take Me to (the Empty) Church? Social Networks, Loneliness and Religious Attendance in Young Polish Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic

A significant body of research supports the relationship between religious attendance, objective and subjective social networks characteristics, and mental well-being. This trajectory may be particularly important in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. Thus, the current study examined the relationship between religious attendance, social network characteristics, loneliness, and mental well-being in a sample of 564 young adults (aged 18-35 years) soon after the first COVID-19-related restrictions were imposed in Poland. In line with previous findings, both frequent (FAs) and infrequent religious attenders (IAs) reported more people in their social networks compared to non-attenders (NAs). Further analysis revealed full mediation of religious attendance (FAs vs. NAs) via social network size on loneliness and mental well-being. This pattern of results was still observed after the exclusion of worship-based affiliates from the social network score. A follow-up survey carried out one year later (N = 94) showed that all three groups of participants (FAs, IAs, and NAs) reported increased loneliness and decreased mental well-being. Taken together, these findings show that the influence of religious attendance on social functioning cannot be attributed solely to congregational relationships.

Gaining Faith, Losing Faith: How Education Shapes the Relationship between Religious Transitions and Later Depression

Using the life course perspective, we assess the "resources" and "risks" to mental health associated with transitions in religious attendance between early life and midlife and how this process may be influenced by education. Drawing on over 35 years of prospective panel data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, baseline models suggest that stable, frequent attendance accumulated between adolescence to midlife and increases to frequent attendance by adulthood are associated with the lowest depression relative to consistent nonattenders. Individuals who declined in their religious participation report higher depression. Education conditioned this association, whereby declines in religious participation negatively impacted the health of those without a college degree more strongly and increases benefitted the well-educated to a greater extent. We combine insights from the life course perspective and work on social stratification and religiosity to interpret our results and offer directives for future research.

Resilience in the Aftermath of Childhood Abuse? Changes in Religiosity and Adulthood Psychological Distress

Of all the forms of adversity experienced during childhood, childhood abuse is known to have the largest impacts on mental health. Yet, we have a limited understanding of factors that may cushion the blow of these early insults, and it remains unclear whether stability or increases/decreases in religiosity facilitate or hinder the ability of religion/spirituality to act as a buffer. Using two waves of MIDUS data, results suggest that increases in positive religious coping (seeking comfort through religion/spirituality) during adulthood buffer the association between childhood physical and emotional abuse on psychological distress, while decreases in religious comfort exacerbate it. Religious attendance had no discernible buffering effect. Taken together, results show that the stress-moderating effects of religion depend on changes in religious coping processes over the life course.

Sad Eyes, Crooked Crosses: Religious Struggles, Psychological Distress and the Mediating Role of Psychosocial Resources

In this paper, we employed data from the 2011 Miami-Dade Health Survey (n = 444) to formally test whether the association between religious struggles and psychological distress is mediated by psychosocial resources. We found that religious struggles were associated with lower levels of social support, self-esteem, the sense of control, and self-control. We also observed that religious struggles were associated with higher levels of non-specific emotional distress, depression, and anxiety, but not somatization. Our mediation analyses revealed significant indirect effects of religious struggles on emotional distress (not somatization) through social support, self-esteem, and the sense of control, but not self-control.

Does Childhood Religiosity Delay Death?

This study explores the potential long-term health effects of religiosity in the childhood home. Analyses use retrospective childhood data from the MIDUS survey linked to National Death Index records from 1995 to 2014. Findings from Cox proportional hazard models suggest that children brought up in highly religious households have a higher risk of mortality than those socialized in more moderately religious households, this despite such individuals having better overall health profiles. The surprising link between high childhood religiosity and mortality was confined to those who downgraded their religiosity. Those who intensified from moderate to high religiosity, in fact, seemed to be most protected. We call for future research to more clearly specify the intervening mechanisms linking childhood religion with adult health and mortality over the life course.

With a little help from my (Canadian) friends: Health differences between minimal and maximal religiosity/spirituality are partially mediated by social support

RATIONALE

Higher levels of religion and spirituality (R/S) are associated with better health in both Canadian and American samples. One mechanism that can account forthis relationship is social support, which is positively associated with higher R/S and is positively associated with overall wellness. Although social support has been found to mediate the relationship between R/S and health in American samples, parallel research on Canadian samples is lacking.

OBJECTIVE

While having cultural similarities, Canada and the United States have noteworthy differences with respect to religion, politics, and demographics. Consequently, it is problematic to assume that social support accounts for the R/Shealth relationship for Canadians. The goal of the current study was to explore whether social support mediated the relationship between R/S and health outcomes.

METHOD

Using individuals ≥20 years of age from the 2012 Canadian Community Health Survey - Mental Health component (N ≥ 9043), we isolated people who had either the lowest or highest possible score on a composite measure of R/S. We then compared 'minimal R/S' respondents to 'maximal R/S' respondents on 11 health outcomes and investigated if these health disparities attenuated when accounting for differences in social support.

RESULTS

Maximal R/S was associated with better health for nine of the tested outcomes, but seven of these relationships were attenuated when social support was added to the model. The two remaining outcomes, drug abuse/dependence and alcohol abuse/dependence, were not significantly impacted by the inclusion of social support.

CONCLUSION

Social support plays a mediating role in many R/S-health relationships for Canadians. Although R/S appears to have a statistical relationship with many health outcomes, several of these lack practical significance.

Leaving My Religion: How Ex-Fundamentalists Reconstruct Identity Related to Well-Being

There is a well-established, steady trend of religious disaffiliates in the USA. However, little qualitative research has been devoted to documenting the experience of religious disaffiliation or "exiting," specifically in the context of identity reconstruction and well-being. This study investigates an understudied subgroup of exiters-individuals who have left Christian fundamentalist religions. Drawing on 24 in-depth interviews, this research reveals the social psychological processes through which former religious participants reconstruct their identity and self-concepts related to their well-being. The results demonstrate that while it is challenging in the beginning stages of the exiting process to develop a new identity and improve self-concepts, over time the construction of a nonreligious identity eventually contributed to participants' greater well-being.

Religion, Health, Social Capital and Place: The Role of the Religious, Social Processes and the Beneficial and Detrimental Effects on the Health and Wellbeing of Inhabitants in Deprived Neighbourhoods in Malta

This paper emphasises the important role that place has in determining how religious social processes operate and impact on health and wellbeing. It draws upon evidence through qualitative in-depth interviews with families (both parents and children) living in two deprived neighbourhoods in Malta, a 'traditional' and a 'modern' one. It emerged that religious faith and practices can generate normative and resource-based social capital which can positively impact on health and wellbeing. However, some individuals found this social capital constraining and this had detrimental effects on their wellbeing. The context, composition, history and norms of the place emerge as highly important. This study emphasises that religious social processes operate in a highly complex manner, and 'adherents' and 'disaffiliates' are likely to enjoy positive or negative health and wellbeing according to where they live and according to important persons living in the neighbourhood such as the parish priest. This study contributes to the research gap between religion, social capital and health and the complex, social processes that operate at the local level of place.

The Disenchanted Self: Anthropological Notes on Existential Distress and Ontological Insecurity Among ex-Mormons in Utah

This paper describes a pervasive form of psychological distress occurring among people undergoing a sudden and acute collapse of faith in the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka LDS, or Mormon Church). Drawing on 18 months of fieldwork in Utah, I trace the cultural-historical etiology of this unique form of psycho-existential trauma, focusing on ex-Mormons' narratives of 'world collapse'-in which the all-encompassing symbolic-existential framework of reality once provided by religion disintegrated once they lost faith in the Mormon Church. Although marked by symptoms resembling depression, anxiety, dissociation and paranoia, this condition is however unlike mental health disorders described in psychiatric diagnostic manuals, and has thus been largely overlooked within the mental health professions. I thereby discuss the extent to which the distress of religious disenchantment constitutes a unique form of 'cultural syndrome' (Hinton and Lewis-Fernandez in Cult Med Psychiatry 34(2):209-218, 2010), reflective of complex historical, cultural, and religious transformations occurring within contemporary Utah Mormonism.

Religious Attendance, Religious Importance, and the Pathways to Depressive Symptoms in Men and Women Aged 50 and Over Living in Ireland

OBJECTIVES

We aimed to explore the relationship between religiosity and depressive symptoms longitudinally.

METHOD

We used four waves (2009-2016) of the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) to create growth curve models (GCM) of depressive symptoms and religious attendance/importance in a sample aged 50+ in Ireland and structural models to assess the longitudinal associations between religious attendance/importance and depressive symptoms. We tested whether this relationship was mediated by social connectedness.

RESULTS

GCM showed that higher religious attendance at baseline was associated with lower baseline depressive symptoms, while higher religious importance was associated with higher baseline depressive symptoms. Social connectedness partially mediated the baseline associations between religious attendance and lower depressive symptoms. There were no associations between religious factors and the development of depressive symptoms over time.

DISCUSSION

This study found that the relationship between religion and depressive symptoms is complex, and any protective effect was driven by religious attendance.

An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of a Religious Conversion

Religious conversion is an important phenomenon in contemporary religious climate, but existing psychology research work is mostly based on quantitative methods. In an attempt to contribute to this field, the present study proposes a qualitative exploration of religious conversion. The in-depth interview of a French woman is examined in order to investigate her experience of religious conversion, 40 years prior. The interview was analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis, with the purpose of revealing how the participant experienced the process of religious conversion, what was its impact on her life, identity and personality and how she coped with this impact. The four emerging themes were: conflicted relationship with Judaism, the pursuit of a spiritual quest, changes after conversion and life after conversion. These themes painted the image of a powerful spiritual transformation, a profound and dynamic lifelong process, integrating concepts and practices, life changes and developments. The findings are explained with the help of available literature.

Quality of life, religiosity, and anxiety and depressive symptoms in liver transplantation candidates

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate quality of life, religiosity and anxiety and depressive symptoms in liver transplant candidates.

METHOD

An epidemiological and cross-sectional study carried out with liver transplant candidates attended at the outpatient clinic of a University Hospital from 2014 to 2016.

RESULTS

Fifty (50) patients with a mean age of 52.5 years old participated in the study, predominantly male (58.0%), having access to primary education (48.0%), Model for End-Stage Liver Disease between 10-19 and having viral hepatitis as the main etiology. They presented an average quality of life score (4.1), high intrinsic religiosity index (5.6) and the presence of anxiety (52.0%) and depressive symptoms (48.0%). It was possible to observe an association between religiosity and quality of life in the worry domain, with higher non-organizational religiosity leading to higher quality of life; anxiety and depressive symptoms were not associated with quality of life and religiosity. However, patients with higher levels of education were more likely to present depressive symptoms.

CONCLUSION

The analysis of quality of life and religiosity was significant, reinforcing the need for the care team to consider religiosity as a coping strategy for the disease.

The keys to happiness: Associations between personal values regarding core life domains and happiness in South Korea

Personal values refer to the beliefs, principles or ideas that are important to people’s lives. We investigated the associations between personal values and happiness. We inquired about the importance of four different categories of personal values: prioritizing social relationships, extrinsic achievements, physical health, and spirituality. Data were drawn from the Korean General Social Survey (KGSS), a nationally representative cross-sectional sample collected over three years (i.e., 2007, 2008, and 2009). The findings showed that respondents prioritizing religion (i.e., spirituality) were the most likely to be happy, followed by those prioritizing social relationships, including family, friends, and neighbors. Those who prioritized extrinsic achievements (money, power, educational attainment, work, and leisure) as well as health were least likely to be happy. The findings suggest that pursuing goals focused on self-enhancement or self-centered value are less likely to result in happiness compared to pursuing alter-centered collective goals or self-transcendence/selflessness.