Religion is an age-old conundrum. Some embrace it wholeheartedly; others dismiss it out of hand. Whatever one makes of it, religion has run through the whole of human history and has been a vital thread in the development of both Eastern and Western civilisation. Unlike other social institutions, religion operates on an immense scale, with complete doctrines and rules, and even views on life, death and morality — and so it can exert a profound influence on a person. The study of religion therefore extends well beyond theology: over the long span of history, psychologists have come to understand more deeply how faith forms and how it works. This article looks at three intriguing phenomena from the psychology of religion, lifting the veil a little on faith's mysteries.
God's compassion — does devotion deepen with age?
As society has developed and information has flowed more freely, the ways people enjoy themselves and socialise have grown more varied. Taking part in religious activities is no longer the only avenue for passing weekends or making friends, and one consequence is that fewer young people are enthusiastic about religious activities, while older people tend to be far more active. Some put this phenomenon down to the older generation simply preserving its long-standing way of life. But the trend does not seem to stem from cultural shifts alone: a large body of research has found that age appears to have a positive relationship with the depth of one's faith (Mcfadden, 1995). Put simply, older people who have always been believers generally tend to hold deeper religious convictions. Using data gathered through the World Values Survey, researchers set out to answer whether changes in the depth of faith are tied to a person growing older, or to differences in cultural background. The survey spanned almost 33 years, targeting the same group of people and repeating the same questions every few years to track and measure their values, beliefs and attitudes, so as to observe whether, as they gradually aged, they came to regard faith as more important. The conclusion was that no matter where in the world they lived, and no matter which generation they belonged to, people came to value faith more as they grew older (Hayward & Krause, 2015). What is intriguing is that this phenomenon did not appear among those whose faith was weak in their youth, or who had no faith at all: even as they aged, they had no motivation to deepen their religious convictions (Hunsberger, 1985). This contrast also led scholars to suspect that, behind age, other factors had a genuine influence on religious belief.
So why does this positive relationship arise? Readers may assume that the deepening of faith is only natural — that when someone takes part in religious activities over a long period, such as reciting scripture, praying or worshipping, they gradually deepen their identification with that religion, or that, under the influence of believers around them, they imperceptibly absorb the religion's values into themselves. Psychology approaches it from another angle, arguing that this behavioural shift stems from a change in the mind. One of the more salient reasons is the dread of crisis. In the course of life, people often encounter all manner of misfortune — losing a loved one, being persecuted to the point of imprisonment, and so on — and scholars point out that these sudden crises leave people more inclined to seek out the meaning of life. Religion can offer a complete worldview (for instance, that the world was created by God, or that one ascends to heaven after death), and its precepts can also help these people chart a new direction in life. So people who already had some connection to religion stand a greater chance of seeking life's meaning through it when they face a crisis, whereas those who had no religious faith to begin with will consider other ways of defining their own lives. The older a person is, the more they have experienced, and the higher their odds of encountering such crises naturally become — which also explains why age and religious faith show a positive relationship: it is out of the dread of being lost that humans choose devotion.
God's favour — are women more inclined to embrace religion?
Have you ever noticed how many of the women around you have a religious faith? The data show that female believers far outnumber male ones. George Gallup (1978) surveyed the numbers of male and female believers in the United States and, through questionnaires, estimated the gap between the two at close to one-fifth. This phenomenon is not confined to the United States; it holds in other countries too. Could it be that God favours women more?
Psychologists offer a range of explanations for the causes of this phenomenon. The renowned psychologist Freud held that God is shaped on the model of a father figure. From the standpoint of the Electra complex he proposed, children tend to be closer to the parent of the opposite sex, and women rely more on the father figure, which makes them more readily drawn to God (Batson, Schoenrade & Ventis, 1993). Other psychologists approach it from differences in emotion, pointing out that women tend to experience stronger feelings of guilt than men when things go wrong, and that one of religion's very roles is to address and ease guilt through various means of atonement (such as confessing to clergy or copying out scripture) — so women have a stronger motivation to throw themselves into religious activities (Argyle & Beit-Hallahmi, 1975). From a social standpoint, gender stereotypes and differences in how men and women are socialised lead them to display differing degrees of openness to religion. The cultures of many countries emphasise cultivating women's capacity to nurture, to comply and to take responsibility, while emphasising self-reliance and independent autonomy in men (Barry, Bacon & Child, 1957), which leaves men less adept than women at nurturing others and expressing emotion. And since religion in many cultures carries strong emotional elements, women respond more readily to religion's call.
God's gift — does faith make you healthier?
In Hong Kong's local culture, religious faith and physical health are bound up inseparably. Every Lunar New Year, the temples are packed shoulder to shoulder, and what people pray for is, above all, good health; in days gone by people worshipped the gods precisely to ask for divine protection and to ward off plague and disaster. As technology has flourished, these ways of praying for health have gradually become matters of form. But from the standpoint of psychology — setting aside the question of whether a divine power exists — faith may have a positive effect on health. Research has found that populations who regularly take part in religious activities have lower mortality rates and longer lifespans (Ellison & Levin, 1998), and the reason may be that religious precepts and activities give people better lifestyle habits — for example, not drinking to excess or taking drugs, practising safe sex, and maintaining an optimistic outlook (Hasanovic & Pajevic, 2010). Recent research has gone so far as to study the brain and neural activity, finding that religious faith can effectively regulate biological pathways so as to lower the chance of contracting certain kinds of illness (Mishra et. al., 2017). Seen in this light, such health could be called a gift of the "heart".
Faith can be seen as a "calling" from God, and equally as a process of the heart seeking something to hold on to. What psychologists examine is only the effect that the act of believing in another has on a person; they cannot use this to pronounce on the existence of God. But there is no harm in everyone exploring different questions about religion from a psychological angle. What makes a good religion? What makes a devout believer? And can choosing to join a religion in order to gain its benefits even count as true faith?
References
1. Argyle, M., & Beit-Hallahmi, B. (2013). The social psychology of religion (Psychology Revivals). Routledge.
2. Barry III, H., Bacon, M. K., & Child, I. L. (1957). A cross-cultural survey of some sex differences in socialization. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 55(3), 327.
3. Batson, C. D., Schoenrade, P., & Ventis, W. L. (1993). Religion and the individual: A social-psychological perspective. Oxford University Press.
4. Ellison, C. G., & Levin, J. S. (1998). The religion-health connection: Evidence, theory, and future directions. Health Education & Behavior, 25(6), 700-720.
5. Gallup, G. H. (1978). The Gallup poll: Public opinion, 1972-1977. Scholarly Resources Inc.
6. Hayward, R. D., & Krause, N. (2015). Aging, social developmental, and cultural factors in changing patterns of religious involvement over a 32-year period: An age–period–cohort analysis of 80 countries. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 46(8), 979-995.
7. Hasanović, M., & Pajević, I. (2010). Religious moral beliefs as mental health protective factor of war veterans suffering from PTSD, depressiveness, anxiety, tobacco and alcohol abuse in comorbidity. Psychiatria Danubina, 22(2), 203-210.
8. Hunsberger, B. (1985). Religion, age, life satisfaction, and perceived sources of religiousness: A study of older persons. Journal of Gerontology, 40(5), 615-620.
9. McFadden, S. H. (1995). Religion and well‐being in aging persons in an aging society. Journal of Social Issues, 51(2), 161-175.
10. Mishra, S. K., Togneri, E., Tripathi, B., & Trikamji, B. (2017). Spirituality and religiosity and its role in health and diseases. Journal of religion and health, 56(4), 1282-1301.
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