Societal Emphasis on Religious Faith as a Cultural Context for Shaping the Social-Psychological Relationships Between Personal Religiosity and Well-Being

Abstract

How does a society’s religious context affect the relationships between personal religiosity and well-being? To explore this question, we used two measures of personal religiosity, the absolute importance of religion, and the importance of religion relative to the importance of six life domains, viz., family, friends, work, politics, leisure, and religion. To test the generalizability of relationships between these two measures of personal religiosity and well-being, we tested them across representative samples of 66,992 persons from 47 societies varying in their emphasis on socializing children for religious faith. Pan-societally, personal religiosity predicted many of the five well-being measures including satisfaction with life, happiness, subjective health, trust of strangers, and trust of known others, but in opposite directions depending on whether the absolute or the relative importance of personal religiosity was used. Controlling for wealth, a societal emphasis on socializing children for religious faith moderated the links of personal religiosity with happiness, trust of strangers, and trust of known others, but most evidence revealed that a societal emphasis on religious faith attenuated the strength of these linkages. We argue that measuring an individual’s religiosity in the context of their daily living yields a more realistic view of religion’s role in personal life and social living and suggest that there are both personal and social costs for investing strongly in religion relative to other domains of daily life. Societal religious context must also be assessed to provide a more nuanced understanding of personal religiosity and its associated correlates.

Keywords

personal religiosity subjective well-being trust societal priorities for socializing children

Religion of whatever type plays a role in individuals’ sense of being well and their integration with others by providing an ideological belief and value system that encourages some degree of transcendence from worldly affairs and provides ethical guidance for conducting interpersonal relations in one’s community. We propose that the experiences derived from having made religion important in one’s life will conduce to greater or lesser subjective well-being and higher or lower levels of trust of others in so far as these experiences are socially endorsed by members of one’s national-cultural setting, thereby enmeshing each person within a normative forcefield.

Extending previous literature, we explored the effect of two different measures of personal religiosity. They are the absolute importance of religion, referring to the degree of importance of religion to an individual without considering other life domains, and the relative centrality of religion, referring to the degree of relative centrality of religion among the six important life domains (viz., family, friends, work, politics, leisure, and religion). Additionally, we examined the relationship of personal religiosity with five measures of well-being, which included social trust that was relatively understudied in cross-cultural research on religion (Berggren & Bjørnskov, 2011). In this study, we also examined the moderating effect of societal religious contexts on the links between personal religiosity and well-being.

Personality Religiosity, Subjective Well-Being, and Trust of Others

Accumulating evidence has supported the important role of personal religiosity across a wide range of personal outcomes, ranging from cognitive processes (Michaels et al., 2020) to health-behaviors (Garrusi & Nakhaee, 2012). The present study focused on the links of personal religiosity to individuals’ subjective well-being, which has been extensively studied (Pöhls, 2021), and to social trust, which has not been so thoroughly investigated (Berggren & Bjørnskov, 2011).

Religiosity and Subjective Well-Being

A person’s subjective well-being (SWB) is a measure of his or her achievements in living, where achievement is defined in terms of that person’s specific profile of motivations (Schönbrodt & Gerstenberg, 2012) and needs (Martela & Sheldon, 2019). So, Friedman et al. (2010) defined SWB as, “. . .the psychological well-being of a person and how satisfying a person believes his or her life is. Good subjective well-being involves good mental adjustment and having a positive acceptance of one’s life in general” (p. 189).

The relationships between personal religiosity and multiple dimensions of SWB, including life satisfaction (e.g., Pöhls, 2021, for a review), happiness (e.g., Alan Lewis et al., 1997), and subjective health status (e.g., Cragun et al., 2016), have been investigated in previous work. The positive effects of personal religiosity on social support (e.g., Krause & Wulff, 2005), a better adjustment in difficult times (e.g., Diener et al., 2011), and a healthier living style (Wallace & Forman, 1998) may explain the positive link between personal religiosity and SWB. However, this research literature has shown mixed results (Pargament, 2002) for both the sign and the strength of the links between measures of personal religiosity and different dimensions of SWB—positive in many studies (e.g., Eichhorn, 2012a; Krause, 2011; Tay et al., 2014), but negative (e.g., Leondari & Gialamas, 2009) or non-significant (e.g., Helliwell & Putnam, 2004) in other studies. How to account for this set of confusing results?

Religiosity and Trust of Others

Religious engagement is regarded as meeting the human need for sociality (Krause, 2011). That sociality, however, may be channeled by how a person’s religious heritage and religious commitment specify the frequency of social contact required and who are appropriate contacts for meeting a believer’s sociality needs. Many religious traditions draw a sharp distinction between co-religionists and “non-believers” or “disbelievers,” limiting the opportunities for a more religious person to satisfy sociality needs in the company of religious outsiders (Hogg et al., 2010).

Trust of others predicts a person’s willingness to associate and cooperate with the trustee (Mayer et al., 1995). The radius of trust (Delhey et al., 2011) for religious persons may be more circumscribed and confined to known associates, usually co-religionists. A religious norm for ingroup association will usually be reinforced by lower levels of trust expressed toward outsiders. In their review paper, Preston et al. (2010) suggested that religiosity promotes prosociality only to ingroup members but not to outgroup members, a claim that can support the hypothesis that personal religiousness will be associated with greater trust in known others but lesser trust in strangers.

However, some findings inconsistent with this hypothesis have also been observed. For instance, Berggren and Bjørnskov (2011) found a negative association between the importance of religion and generalized trust. Some studies found that the perceived importance of religion was not significantly associated with interpersonal trust, which included trust in people personally known (e.g., Addai et al., 2013; Navarro-Carrillo et al., 2018). Again, how to account for this set of confusing results?

The Moderating Effect of Societal Religious Contexts

Researchers make different attempts to understand the mixed results of the links between personal religiosity and well-being observed in the previous studies. One of the possible reasons could be due to the sampling of narrowly selected populations involved, usually students coming from WEIRD nations (Henrich et al., 2010). As demonstrated by the previous studies mentioned above, the pattern obtained in one cultural group may not generalize across cultures with varying levels of different characteristics, such as ethnic group religiosity (Cohen & Johnson, 2017), national-territorial levels of human development (Li & Bond, 2010), and societal hostility toward religion (Lun & Bond, 2013).

The crucial moderating role of societal religious contexts on the link between personality religiosity and SWB was highlighted in previous cross-cultural studies. For instance, using data from 64 countries, Stavrova et al. (2013) found a stronger positive association between personal religiosity and subjective well-being (viz., life satisfaction and happiness) in societies with a stronger social norm of religiosity than in societies with a weaker norm of religiosity. Similarly, Gebauer and colleagues (Gebauer et al., 2012, 2017) found stronger positive associations of personal religiosity with psychological adjustment and self-esteem in societies with higher levels of religiosity than in societies with lower levels of religiosity. The authors argued that, in societies emphasizing religiosity, personal religiosity becomes a more socially normative behavior (Stavrova et al., 2013) and a more socially acceptable value (Gebauer et al., 2012, 2017), thereby leading to a stronger positive effect of personal religiosity on SWB in such societal contexts. However, while successfully replicating the moderating effect of societal religious contexts on the link between personal religiosity and life satisfaction, Pirutinsky (2013) failed to observe the significant moderating role of societal religious contexts when happiness and subjective health status were the outcome variables.

While attempts have been made to understand the moderating role of societal religious contexts on the link between personal religiosity and SWB, the moderating role played by societal religious contexts has rarely been examined in previous work on other outcome variables, such as trust of others (Pöhls, 2021). One exception was the study by Berggren and Bjørnskov (2011) who found a stronger negative association between the importance of religion in one’s daily life and generalized trust in societies with greater diversity in their religious affiliations than in societies with lesser diversity in their religious affiliations. How the level of societal religiosity moderates the association between personal religiosity and different types of trust, however, is as yet unexplored.

The Societal Context for Socializing Children for Religious Faith

The present study explored the role of societal religious context by examining the moderating role of the societal context for socializing children for religious faith (SPSC-RF). This goal emphasis for the character development of children provides a map of desired priorities emerging out of a nation’s historical legacy for needed human capital, as proposed by Bond and Lun (2014). These priorities frame the socialization practices undertaken by that polity’s institutions, beginning with the family, moving into a child’s schooling, then extending into the occupational world of the developing adult. During this extended enculturation process, the child will encounter and adapt to the normative practices of the societal institutions that the nation has created in adapting to its religious-ideological heritage and contemporary economic and international circumstances. The societal context for socializing children may thus be conceptualized as the acculturation component of the “process variables” in the Berry (2017) model leading to psychological variables of interest, like SWB (e.g., Lun & Bond, 2016).

If the life domain of religion accords with individuals’ cultural socialization and current roles in life, then we may expect that their personal religiosity would relate to higher SWB and perhaps other desirable outcomes, such as greater trust accorded different types of trustee as well. So, a cultural emphasis on socializing children for the qualities of religious faith would be likely to promote a positive link between one’s personal religiosity with one’s SWB and trust of others. As discussed above, previous studies (Gebauer et al., 2012, 2017; Stavrova et al., 2013) have provided supportive findings for the strengthening effect of societal religious context on the positive link between personal religiosity and SWB, while little is known whether this pattern could be generalizable to other desirable outcomes, such as trust of strangers and of known others.

The Importance of Religion: Absolute Versus Relative Importance

In addition to extending the reach of previous studies on personal religiosity as described above, the present study also explored these relationships by considering different ways for measuring the importance of religion as the indicator of personal religiosity: the absolute importance of religion and the relative importance of religion.

The degree of importance of religion in one’s life is widely used as the indicator of personal religiosity, and it is typically assessed by asking participants to rate how important religion is in their life (e.g., Gebauer et al., 2012). We term this measure, “the absolute importance of religion” (AIR). While previous studies have demonstrated the usefulness of AIR as an indicator of personal religiosity in predicting different aspects of SWB (e.g., Diener et al., 2011; Gebauer et al., 2012), this isolated measure may ignore the potential tension between a person’s commitment to religion and other different life domains (e.g., work, family, and leisure). The influence of personal religiosity may more realistically depend on how religious practice combines with practice in other life domains to meet the individual’s needs, aspirations, aptitudes, and expectations in his or her cultural context (Sasaki & Kim, 2011; Sav et al., 2014). Thus, we propose that the relationships among different life domains should be considered in assessing the links between personal religiosity and various measures of well-being.

Inspired by research on managing multiple social roles across life domains, such as work-nonwork conflicts and balance (e.g., Greenhaus et al., 2003; Rice et al., 1992), we studied the relative centrality of religion in a person’s life, reflecting how important one’s religion is across different life domains, as an indicator of personal religiosity. Accordingly, we term this measure, “the relative importance of religion” (RIR).

We argue that people engage in different life domains, such as work, family, politics, friendships, leisure, and religion. Any given domain of life will be scanned and evaluated by the person in terms of the affordances it provides for achieving that person’s current goals for sociality, status, and meaning (Hogan & Bond, 2009; Kesebir, 2011). Although the experience in one life domain may be beneficial to the experience in another life domain (e.g., work-family facilitation; Frone, 2003), people often experience conflicts between different life domains (e.g., work-family conflict; Rice et al., 1992). Given each person’s limited time and resources, fulfilling the demands of one life domain may interfere the fulfilment of demands from other life domains, (Greenhaus et al., 2003). So, while career commitment positively predicted subjective well-being (Singhal & Rastogi, 2018), work-family conflict, which may easily occur due to high career commitment, negatively predicted subjective well-being (Rice et al., 1992).

These findings suggest the importance of considering the relationships among different life domains when we examine the effect of importance of religion in each person’s life space. Supporting this notion, LeBaron et al. (2021) found in their qualitative research that religious involvement can bring negative impacts in other life domains such as family and work despite its positive impacts.

To our knowledge, no studies explored the effect of relative importance of religion on people’s SWB and trust and how the effect could be moderated by one’s societal religious context. To advance the understanding of the effect of personal religiosity by considering its relationship with other important life domains, we explored the effect of two types of personal religiosity, including both the absolute importance of religiosity and the relative importance of religiosity.

Overview of Present Study

In the present study, we used the World Values Survey involving representative samples from 47 societies (nations and territories) and employed two measures of the importance of religion in one’s life, including the absolute importance and the relative importance of religion. Doing so would enable us to cast new light on an old question—under what set of circumstances does personal religiosity promote SWB and trust? We addressed this question multi-culturally using three different measures of SWB, viz., life satisfaction, happiness, and subjective health status, and two measures of trust of others, viz., trust of known others and trust of strangers, by testing the potential moderating role of the societal context of socializing children for religious faith.

Following previous findings, we expected a stronger positive association of personal religiosity with SWB and trust of others in societies placing a higher priority on socializing children for religious faith than in societies placing a lower priority on socializing children for religious faith. We explored these patterns with two different measures of personal religiosity: the absolute and the relative importance of religion.

Method

Participants

The latest wave of the World Values Survey, wave7 (Haerpfer et al., 2020), released in July 2020, was used to test our research hypotheses. The data were collected from representative samples of 49 countries/territories (termed, “societies”) between 2017 and 2020. The dataset is openly accessible online (https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp). We removed two countries (Guatemala and Tunisia) due to their lack of data for societal priority in socializing children for religious faith, as explained in the following section. The final data set consisted of 66,992 participants (M_age = 42.77 years, SD = 16.26 years; 53% female participants, 47% male participants) from 47 countries/territories.

Measures

Level-1 (Individual-level) variables

Table 1 presents the mean of each level-1 variable across societies.

Table 1.

The Descriptives for Measurements Across Societies.

Country/territory	AIR	RIR	Life satisfaction	Happiness	Subjective health status	Trust of known others	Trust of strangers	Age	Sex	Education	SPSC-RF	Societal AIR	Societal RIR	Societal wealth
Andorra	3.03	0.12	7.53	3.29	4.08	3.27	2.38	46.79	0.49	2.1	0.08	3.03	0.12	41,794
Argentina	3.61	0.14	7.66	3.19	3.83	3.3	2.48	42.81	0.51	1.75	0.18	3.61	0.14	13,140
Australia	3.09	0.13	7.54	3.22	3.95	3.36	2.73	54.03	0.61	2.37	0.14	3.09	0.13	53,190
Bangladesh	4.93	0.20	7.6	3.16	3.71	3.33	1.94	36.62	0.51	1.3	0.85	4.93	0.2	1,750
Bolivia	4.39	0.18	7.47	3.09	3.51	2.65	1.74	38.06	0.5	2.01	0.40	4.39	0.18	3,090
Brazil	4.27	0.17	7.56	3.17	3.8	2.85	2.12	43.53	0.55	1.73	0.37	4.27	0.17	9,080
Chile	3.58	0.14	7.19	3.11	3.84	3.01	2.18	45.27	0.53	2.17	0.1	3.58	0.14	14,620
China	2.75	0.12	7.41	3.15	3.79	3.28	1.95	44.59	0.55	1.68	0.01	2.75	0.12	9,600
Colombia	4.33	0.17	8.19	3.45	3.96	2.81	1.9	38.85	0.5	1.84	0.47	4.33	0.17	6,260
Cyprus	4.15	0.16	6.67	3.11	4.24	3.26	1.98	43.53	0.52	2.27	0.53	4.15	0.16	27,710
Ecuador	4.32	0.17	7.78	3.5	3.86	2.68	1.68	39.51	0.52	1.94	0.48	4.32	0.17	6,090
Egypt	4.97	0.20	5.87	2.72	3.59	3.49	2.04	39.65	0.49	1.79	0.80	4.97	0.2	2,790
Ethiopia	4.9	0.19	5.78	3.18	4.27	3.23	2.23	31.93	0.49	1.49	0.63	4.93	0.19	850
Germany	3.27	0.13	7.74	3.16	3.74	3.33	2.48	50.79	0.51	2.23	0.10	3.27	0.13	47,050
Greece	4.30	0.17	6.19	2.78	4.16	3.23	1.86	50.98	0.53	1.91	0.32	4.3	0.17	17,910
Hong Kong	3.16	0.13	6.63	2.89	3.44	3.13	2.35	47.17	0.54	2.19	0.09	3.16	0.13	50,060
Indonesia	4.98	0.19	7.56	3.37	3.87	2.93	1.86	40.01	0.55	1.53	0.76	4.98	0.19	3,850
Iran	4.59	0.18	6.2	2.78	3.85	3.25	2.19	39.48	0.49	2.12	0.55	4.59	0.18	5,300
Iraq	4.83	0.18	4.47	2.79	3.6	3.4	2.07	36.6	0.49	1.74	0.62	4.83	0.18	5,060
Japan	2.74	0.11	6.76	3.2	3.53	3.11	1.98	54.76	0.56	2.49	0.04	2.74	0.11	41,710
Jordan	4.94	0.19	6.87	3.08	4.15	3.31	2.25	43.31	0.5	1.9	0.77	4.94	0.19	4,270
Kazakhstan	3.87	0.15	6.92	3.19	3.72	3.16	2.16	41.23	0.55	2.51	0.15	3.87	0.15	8,070
Kyrgyzstan	3.30	0.13	8.38	3.63	4.06	3.28	2.09	41.29	0.62	2.39	0.10	4.35	0.17	1,240
Lebanon	4.35	0.17	6.68	3.03	3.91	3.06	2.1	40.83	0.5	2.04	0.27	4.54	0.17	7,720
Macau	3.18	0.13	6.48	3.04	3.64	3.21	2.31	40.85	0.56	2.09	0.06	3.18	0.13	78,640
Malaysia	4.62	0.18	6.99	3.03	3.81	3.18	2.18	38.33	0.5	1.77	0.60	4.62	0.18	10,650
Mexico	4.15	0.16	8.16	3.49	3.87	2.83	1.8	43.55	0.5	1.83	0.30	4.15	0.16	9,180
Myanmar	4.79	0.18	7.2	3.18	3.72	3.17	2.01	40.43	0.5	1.48	0.53	4.79	0.18	1,390
New Zealand	2.94	0.12	7.55	3.27	3.96	3.45	2.76	57.52	0.57	2.46	0.12	2.94	0.12	42,220
Nicaragua	4.47	0.17	7.94	3.33	3.89	2.74	1.77	35.13	0.51	1.67	0.53	4.47	0.17	1,890
Nigeria	4.92	0.18	5.63	3.12	4.18	2.94	2.11	32.42	0.49	1.68	0.73	4.92	0.18	1,960
Pakistan	4.85	0.19	7.67	3.35	3.95	3.3	1.94	35.64	0.48	1.56	0.59	4.85	0.19	1,480
Peru	4.20	0.17	7.63	3.17	3.65	2.64	1.66	40.16	0.5	1.96	0.32	4.2	0.17	6,470
Philippines	4.85	0.18	7.37	3.42	3.56	3.21	2.13	43.64	0.5	1.45	0.54	4.85	0.18	3,850
Puerto Rico	4.48	0.17	8.45	3.4	3.91	3.17	2.38	49.7	0.61	2.42	0.51	4.48	0.17	21,030
Romania	4.23	0.17	7.16	2.94	3.77	2.93	1.95	48.3	0.6	1.61	0.49	4.23	0.17	11,430
Russia	3.54	0.15	6.55	2.98	3.51	3.21	2.15	45.36	0.59	2.53	0.11	3.54	0.15	9,210
Serbia	3.64	0.15	6.66	2.96	3.63	3.22	2.22	46.78	0.55	2.32	0.10	3.64	0.15	5,560
South Korea	3.60	0.14	6.73	2.93	4.06	3.21	2.02	45.63	0.51	2.36	0.10	3.3	0.13	32,730
Taiwan	4.53	0.18	7.07	3.14	3.75	3.28	2.37	48.29	0.51	2.31	0.33	3.6	0.14	26,585
Tajikistan	4.25	0.17	7.95	3.57	3.97	3.23	1.62	41.05	0.51	2.29	0.19	4.53	0.18	1,030
Thailand	4.46	0.17	6.6	3.15	3.9	3.3	2.15	46.06	0.53	1.43	0.43	4.25	0.17	6,600
Turkey	3.76	0.15	6.51	3.05	3.84	3.2	2.11	38.81	0.5	1.95	0.15	4.46	0.17	10,520
Ukraine	3.71	0.15	6.12	2.97	3.38	3.16	2.3	47.63	0.6	2.56	0.30	3.76	0.15	3,370
USA	3.36	0.14	7.22	3.12	3.9	3.17	2.6	43.42	0.46	2.5	0.05	3.71	0.15	59,080
Vietnam	4.86	0.18	8.03	3.45	3.8	3.27	2.18	37.89	0.55	1.9	0.55	3.36	0.14	2,590
Zimbabwe	3.18	0.13	4.95	2.54	3.22	3.07	2.18	39.15	0.51	1.51	0.06	4.86	0.18	1,390

Note. For individual-level variables, country-level means were presented; for country-level variables, the country value was presented. AIR = absolute importance of religion; RIR = relative importance of religion; SPSC-RF = societal priority in socializing children for religious faith.

Absolute importance of religion (AIR)

Participants were asked to report how important religion was in their lives using a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all important, 5 = very important).

Relative importance of religion (RIR)

Participants were asked to report how important each of the six major domains (i.e., family, friends, leisure time, politics, work, and religion) was in their lives using a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all important, 5 = very important). We assessed the relative importance of religion for the person relative to the summed importance the person attached to six major domains of living, termed as “relative importance of religion,” adapting the computation used in a previous study (Lu et al., 2019).

Life satisfaction

Participants were asked to indicate how satisfied they were with their life as a whole in recent days using a 10-point scale (1 = dissatisfied; 10 = satisfied).

Happiness

Participants were asked to report their feelings of happiness using a 4-point scale (1 = not at all happy; 4 = very happy).

Subjective health status

Participants were asked to report their subjective health status in recent days using a 5-point scale (1 = very poor; 5 = very good).

Trust of known others and trust of strangers

We followed previous work to identify items from the World Values Survey for trust of known others and trust of strangers (Jing & Bond, 2015; Jing et al., 2021). The psychometric properties of these measures have been shown to be adequately equivalent across cultures (e.g., Delhey et al., 2011).

For assessing trust of known others, participants reported how much they trusted each of the three types of persons (i.e., family members, people in their neighborhood, and people they know personally) using a 4-point scale (1 = do not trust at all; 4 = trust completely). The item scores were averaged to index trust of known others. For assessing trust of strangers, participants reported how much they trusted each of the three types of persons (i.e., people they met for the first time, people of another religion, and people of another nationality) using a 4-point scale (1 = do not trust at all; 4 = trust completely). The item scores were averaged to index trust of strangers.

Demographics

Participants’ age, sex (0 = male; 1 = female), and education (1 = lower, 2 = middle, and 3 = higher level) were also recorded from the World Values Survey.

Level-2 (societal-level) variables

Table 1 presents the value of each level-2 variable across societies.

Societal priority in socializing children for religious faith (SPSC-RF)

Participants were asked to select up to five qualities they regarded as important for children to learn at home from a list of 11 qualities. The score of SPSC-RF was indicated by each country’s/territory’s percentage of respondents selecting religious faith as one important quality. The data of Guatemala and Tunisia were excluded because more than 25% of participants in these countries had missing or invalid data (i.e., participants selected no quality or more than five qualities).

Other societal religiosity indicators

For exploratory purposes, we also examined the pattern of results using the indicators of societal religiosity adopted in previous studies (Diener et al., 2011; Gebauer et al., 2017). We calculated societal AIR by averaging respondents’ answers to AIR within each country and societal RIR by averaging respondents’ scores of RIR within each country.

Societal wealth

Data of gross national/territorial per capita income (current US$) (GNI pp), were obtained from the World Bank (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.PCAP.CD) to index the wealth of each country/territory in the year of data collection. Note that the data of Andorra (https://knoema.com/atlas/Andorra/topics/Economy/National-Accounts-Gross-National-Income/GNI-per-capita) and Taiwan (https://www.ceicdata.com/en/taiwan/sna-08-reference-year2016-gdp-by-expenditure-current-price-annual/gross-national-income-per-capita-uS-D) were obtained from other sources because they were not recorded by the World Bank. For a better interpretation of results, GNI pp were divided by 1,000 before further analyses.

Statistical Analyses

The linear mixed modeling method was used to test our hypotheses in response to the hierarchical structure of the data (i.e., individuals nested in their society). At the within-society level, subjective well-being or interpersonal trust was set as the dependent variable, and RIR or AIR was set as the independent variable, with key demographics (i.e., gender, age, education) controlled. The within-society level intercept and slope of RIR/AIR were set as random-effect ones so that they could vary at the between-society level, being predicted by SPSC-RF, societal AIR, or societal RIR. We tested models with and without controlling for GNI pp in all cross-level analyses. Following previous suggestions and practices (Bauer & Curran, 2005; Tam & Chan, 2017), all within-society level predictors (except gender) were group-mean centered, and all between-society level predictors were grand-mean centered. All analyses were conducted using the lme4 package (Bates et al., 2015) in the R software.

Results

Tables 2 and 3 show the descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients across the studied variables. The intra-class correlation coefficients of level-1 variables range between 0.01 and 0.42.

Table 2.

Descriptions of Key Variables and Demographics of Participants.

Variables	N	Mean (SD)	Range	ICC
Individual-level
AIR	66,353	4.09 (1.05)	2–5	0.42
RIR	65,089	0.16 (0.04)	0.07–0.33	0.39
Life satisfaction	66,760	7.09 (2.27)	1–10	0.14
Happiness	66,589	3.15 (0.71)	1–4	0.10
Subjective health status	66,850	3.81 (0.87)	1–5	0.07
Trust of known others	66,251	3.13 (0.55)	1–4	0.14
Trust of strangers	63,166	2.11 (0.70)	1–4	0.14
Age	66,707	42.77 (16.26)	16–103	0.12
Gender	66,957	0.53 (0.50)	0–1	0.01
Education	66,496	1.97 (0.81)	1–3	0.19
Society-level
SPSC-RF	47	0.36 (0.24)	0.01–0.85
Societal AIR	47	4.10 (0.68)	2.74–4.98
Societal RIR	47	0.16 (0.02)	0.11–0.20
GNI pp	47	15.55 (18.64)	0.85–78.64

Note. AIR = absolute importance of religion; GNI pp = gross national income, per capita (1,000 current US$); RIR = relative importance of religion; SPSC-RF = societal priorities in socializing children for religious faith.

Table 3.

Correlation Coefficients of Studied Variables Across Levels.

Variable	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
1. AIR		0.99	−0.16	0.04	0.18	−0.23	−0.42	−0.68	−0.56	−0.39	0.92	1.00	0.99	−0.65
2. RIR	0.89		−0.13	0.03	0.12	−0.25	−0.45	−0.68	−0.55	−0.38	0.90	0.99	1.00	−0.67
3. Life satisfaction	0.05	0.01		0.81	0.24	−0.28	−0.15	0.14	0.04	0.17	−0.14	−0.16	−0.13	0.03
4. Happiness	0.06	0.00	0.40		0.39	−0.23	−0.22	−0.08	−0.06	0.11	0.01	0.04	0.03	−0.13
5. Subjective health status	−0.02	−0.07	0.28	0.35		0.12	0.01	−0.13	−0.09	−0.16	0.22	0.18	0.12	−0.01
6. Trust of known others	0.06	−0.03	0.14	0.16	0.12		0.57	0.29	0.16	0.10	−0.18	−0.23	−0.25	0.25
7. Trust of strangers	0.03	−0.03	0.04	0.06	0.07	0.40		0.47	0.45	0.17	−0.34	−0.42	−0.45	0.65
8. Age	0.11	0.13	−0.01	−0.06	−0.24	0.07	0.03		0.54	0.55	−0.62	−0.68	−0.68	0.58
9. Education	−0.08	−0.12	0.04	0.04	0.14	0.03	0.07	−0.26		0.31	−0.58	−0.56	−0.55	0.55
10. Gender	0.08	0.10	0.01	0.01	-0.05	−0.05	−0.05	−0.03	-0.05		−0.38	−0.39	−0.37	0.11
11. SPSC-RF												0.92	0.90	−0.50
12. Societal AIR													0.99	−0.65
13. Societal RIR														−0.67
14. GNI pp

Note. Within-level correlation coefficients are presented below the diagonal line; between-level correlations are presented above the diagonal line; statistically significant coefficients were marked as bold, using p < .5 and p < .001 for the between- and within-level criteria. AIR = absolute importance of religion; GNI pp = gross national income, per capita (1,000 current US$); RIR = relative importance of religion; SPSC-RF = societal priorities in socializing children for religious faith.

Absolute Importance of Religion (AIR)

In the multilevel models, AIR was positively correlated with life satisfaction, happiness, subjective health status, and trust of known others (ps ≤ .01) (Table 4).

Table 4.

Results of Multilevel Analyses Using Absolute Importance of Religion as the Predictor.

Variable	Life satisfaction	Happiness	Subjective health status	Trust of known others	Trust of strangers
Variable	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]
Within-society level
Intercept	7.04*** (0.12)[6.80, 7.28]	3.14*** (0.03)[3.07, 3.21]	3.86*** (0.03)[3.80, 3.93]	3.17*** (0.03)[3.11, 3.23]	2.16*** (0.03)[2.10, 2.22]
AIR	0.16*** (0.03)[0.11, 0.21]	0.06*** (0.01)[0.04, 0.07]	0.03* (0.01)[0.01, 0.05]	0.05*** (0.01)[0.04, 0.07]	0.02 (0.01)[−0.002, 0.035]
Age	−0.000 (0.001)[-0.001, 0.001]	−0.002*** (0.000)[−0.003, −0.002]	−0.01*** (0.000)[−0.01, −0.01]	0.003*** (0.000)[0.002, 0.003]	0.002*** (0.000)[0.002, 0.002]
Gender	0.03 (0.02)[−0.01, 0.06]	0.01* (0.01)[0.004, 0.02]	−0.08*** (0.01)[−0.09, −0.07]	−0.05*** (0.004)[−0.06, −0.04]	−0.07*** (0.01)[−0.08, −0.06]
Education	0.13*** (0.01)[0.10, 0.15]	0.03*** (0.004)[0.02, 0.04]	0.09*** (0.01)[0.08, 0.10]	0.03*** (0.003)[0.03, 0.04]	0.07*** (0.004)[0.06, 0.08]
Between-society level
SPSC-RF	−0.83 (0.61)[−2.02, 0.37]	−0.16 (0.16)[−0.48, 0.16]	0.24 (0. 16)[−0.07, 0.55]	0.02 (0.15)[−0.27, 0.31]	−0.08 (0.15)[−0.38, 0.22]
GNI pp	−0.003 (0.01)[−0.02, 0.01]	−0.002 (0.002)[−0.01, 0.002]	0.002 (0.002)[−0.002, 0.01]	0.003 (0.002)[−0.001, 0.01]	0.01** (0.002)[0.004, 0.01]
Cross-level interaction
AIR × SPSC-RF	0.14 (0.12)[−0.09, 0.38]	0.03 (0.04)[−0.04, 0.11]	0.06 (0.05)[−0.04, 0.15]	0.11** (0.03)[0.05, 0.18]	−0.20*** (0.04)[−0.28, −0.11]
Conditional R²	0.15	0.12	0.13	0.17	0.15

Note. AIR = absolute importance of religion; GNI pp = gross national income, per capita (1,000 current US$); SPSC-RF = societal priorities in socializing children for religious faith.

p < .050. **p < .010. ***p < .001

Societal priorities in socializing children for religious faith (SPSC-RF) moderated the link between AIR with trust of known others and trust of strangers (ps ≤ .001). The positive correlation between AIR and trust of known others was stronger when SPSC-RF was high (Estimate = 0.08, SE = 0.01, p < .001, 95% CI = [0.06, 0.10]) comparing to when it was low (Estimate = 0.03, SE = 0.01, p = .01, 95% CI = [0.01, 0.05]) (Table 6; Figure 1D). AIR was positively correlated with trust of strangers when SPSC-RF was low (Estimate = 0.06, SE = 0.01, p < .001, 95% CI = [0.04, 0.08]) whereas such correlation became negative when SPSC-RF was high (Estimate = −0.03, SE = 0.02, p = .04, 95% CI = [−0.06, −0.002]) (Table 6; Figure 1E). These results remained similar without considering societal affluence as a covariate (Table S1 in the Online Supplemental Material). The results were also similar when SPSC-RF was replaced by societal AIR with and without controlling for societal affluence (Supplemental Tables S3 and S4).

Figure 1.

Illustrations of the relationship between individual-level absolute importance of religion with subjective well-being (A, B, C) and interpersonal trust (D, E) across societal priorities in socializing children for religious faith (±1SD).

Relative Importance of Religion (RIR)

In the multilevel models, RIR was negatively correlated with subjective health status, trust of known others, and trust of strangers (p ≤ .001) (Table 5).

Table 5.

Results of Multilevel Analyses Using Relative Importance of Religion as the Predictor.

Variable	Life satisfaction	Happiness	Subjective health status	Trust of known others	Trust of strangers
Variable	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]
Within-society level
Intercept	7.04*** (0.12)[6.79, 7.28]	3.14*** (0.03)[3.07, 3.20]	3.86*** (0.03)[3.80, 3.92]	3.17*** (0.03)[3.11, 3.23]	2.16*** (0.03)[2.09, 2.22]
RIR	0.63 (0.79)[−0.93, 2.18]	−0.08 (0.23)[−0.52, 0.36]	−1.03*** (0.26)[−1.54, −0.52]	−1.02*** (0.19)[−1.40, −0.64]	−1.18*** (0.23)[−1.63, −0.72]
Age	0.000 (0.001)[−0.001, 0.001]	−0.002*** (0.000)[−0.002, −0.002]	−0.01*** (0.000)[−0.01, −0.01]	0.003*** (0.000)[0.002, 0.003]	0.002*** (0.000)[0.002, 0.002]
Gender	0.04^* (0.02)[0.002, 0.07]	0.02*** (0.005)[0.01, 0.03]	−0.08*** (0.01)[−0.09, −0.06]	−0.05*** (0.004)[−0.05, −0.04]	−0.06*** (0.01)[−0.07, −0.05]
Education	0.12*** (0.12)[0.09, 0.14]	0.27*** (0.004)[0.02, 0.03]	0.09*** (0.01)[0.08, 0.10]	0.03*** (0.003)[0.02, 0.03]	0.07*** (0.004)[0.06, 0.07]
Between-society level
SPSC-RF	−0.87 (0.60)[−2.06, 0.31]	−0.19 (0.16)[−0.51, 0.13]	0.24 (0.16)[−0.07, 0.56]	0.01 (0.15)[−0.28, 0.30]	−0.09 (0.15)[−0.39, 0.22]
GNI pp	−0.004 (0.01)[−0.02, 0.01]	−0.003 (0.002)[−0.01, 0.001]	0.002 (0.002)[−0.002, 0.01]	0.003 (0.002)[−0.001, 0.01]	0.01** (0.002)[0.003, 0.01]
Cross-level interaction
RIR × SPSC-RF	−4.97 (3.44)[−11.70, 1.76]	−3.10** (0.98)[−5.02, −1.19]	−1.89 (1.13)[−4.11, 0.33]	−4.29*** (0.83)[−5.92, −2.65]	−9.77*** (1.01)[−11.75, −7.79]
Conditional R²	0.15	0.12	0.13	0.16	0.16

Note. ; GNI pp = gross national income, per capita (1,000 current US$); RIR = relative importance of religion; SPSC-RF = societal priorities in socializing children for religious faith.

p < .050. **p < .010. ***p < .001

SPSC-RF moderated the link between RIR with happiness, trust of known others, and trust of strangers (ps ≤ .003). RIR was negatively correlated with happiness when SPSC-RF was high (Estimate = −0.67, SE = 0.34, p = .05, 95% CI = [−1.34, −0.004]) whereas such correlation became non-significant when SPSC-RF was low (p = .09) (Table 6; Figure 2B). RIR was negatively correlated with trust of known others when SPSC-RF was high (Estimate = −1.83, SE = 0.31, p < .001, 95% CI = [−0.75, 0.40]) whereas such correlation was not significant when SPSC-RF was low (p = .55) (Table 6; Figure 2D). RIR was negatively correlated with trust of strangers when SPSC-RF was high (Estimate = -3.15, SE = 0.43, p < 0.001, 95%CI = [-3.99, -2.30]) but this pattern was not significant when SPSC-RF was low (p = .06) (Table 6; Figure 2E). These results were similar without entering societal affluence as a covariate (Supplemental Table S2). These results were also similar when using societal RIR as the moderator, with and without controlling for societal affluence (Supplemental Tables S5 and S6).

Table 6.

Simple Slopes of Two Measurements of Individual-Level Religiosity at Low (1SD Below the Mean) and High (1SD Above the Mean) Levels of Societal Priorities in Socializing Children for Religious Faith.

Predictor	Absolute importance of religion		Relative importance of religion
	Trust of known others	Trust of strangers	Happiness	Trust of known others	Trust of strangers
	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]	Estimate (SE)[95% CI]
SPSC-RF
Low	−0.03* (0.01)[−0.05, −0.01]	0.06*** (0.01)[0.04, 0.08]	0.56 (0.32)[−0.06, 1.18]	−0.18 (0.29)[−0.75, 0.40]	0.79 (0.40)[−0.002, 1.58]
High	0.08*** (0.01)[0.06, 0.10]	−0.03* (0.02)[−0.06, −0.002]	−0.67^§ (0.34)[−1.34, −0.004]	−1.83 (0.31)[−2.44, −1.23]	−3.15*** (0.43)[−3.99, −2.3]

Note. SPSC-RF = societal priorities in socializing children for religious faith.

p < .10. *p < .05. ***p < .001.

Figure 2.

Illustrations of the relationship between individual-level relative importance of religion with subjective well-being (A, B, C) and interpersonal trust (D, E) across societal priorities in socializing children for religious faith (±1SD).

Discussion

Summary of Findings

The present research explored the relationships of the absolute importance of religion and the relative importance of religion in a person’s life with some widely used measures of subjective well-being (SWB; viz., life satisfaction, happiness, subjective health status) and interpersonal trust (viz., trust of known others and trust of strangers). These relationships were examined under the moderating effect of societal priorities in socializing children for religious faith (SPSC-RF) as well other indicators of societal religious contexts. Across representative samples of citizens from 47 countries and territories, the results revealed different patterns for the absolute importance of religion (AIR) and relative importance of religion (RIR) on these measures of well-being.

Specifically, we found that the pan-societal effects of individuals’ AIR were positive for all three aspects of SWB and for trust of known others, whereas the pan-societal effects of individuals’ RIR were negative for subjective health status, trust of known others, and trust of strangers. SPSC-RF moderated these relationships regardless of whether societal wealth was controlled. However, these moderations were inconsistent for AIR and RIR with different well-being measures; most evidence indicated that living in societies high in SPSC-RF showed that individual-level religiosity, however measured, carries fewer positive implications for one’s SWB and interpersonal trust. Convergent findings were obtained when we used the indicators of societal religiosity adopted by previous studies (Diener et al., 2011; Gebauer et al., 2017), suggesting the reliability of the present findings.

Absolute Versus Relative Importance of Religion

To our knowledge, this research is the first to examine the effect of personal religiosity by considering the relationship of an individual’s motivational investment in religion relative to his or her investment in other important life domains (i.e., family, friends, leisure time, politics, and work). The present results show that observed differences in the relationships of AIR and RIR with measures of SWB and interpersonal trust are different: positive effects were observed when a person’s AIR was assessed; in contrast, negative effects were observed when a person’s RIR was assessed.

To try and explain such inconsistencies, we argue that measuring AIR may solely capture the respondent’s evaluation of being a religious person without considering a person’s investment in religion relative to that person’s investment in other life domains. Measuring AIR alone ignores the fact that all individuals engage in different life domains and assume multiple social roles where they likely experience conflicts in balancing their many responsibilities in these activity domains (e.g., Greenhaus et al., 2003). Therefore, we propose that examining RIR rather than AIR positions religion as one domain of life within the fuller perspective of life as lived across its many domains, thus capturing greater ecological validity in considering religion as part of an individual’s life-as-lived.

If so, the present findings for RIR across societies present a mixed picture of the personal and social associations of personal religiosity in an individual’s life space. Pan-societally, RIR has no relationship with the two standard measures of well-being (viz., life satisfaction and happiness). These null effects suggest that individuals may find either type of well-being through investing relatively more strongly in other domains of living than religion, such as in the work domain (Mitra et al., 2021).

By contrast, greater RIR is pan-societally associated with lower subjective health, as are the interpersonal-social measures of trust in known others and in strangers. Even though these findings are correlational, they suggest that a relative commitment to religion in one’s life promotes a disengagement from worldly concerns and a detachment from worldly outcomes that are associated with the ideologies of most religions. A personal investment in religion relative to other activity domains indicates a relative withdrawal from more mundane pursuits.

Thus, the present findings suggest that whether personal religiosity has positive or negative effects on SWB and interpersonal trust may depend on how it is measured. As found with some research in the domain of work (Greenhaus et al., 2003; Mitra et al., 2021; Rice et al., 1992), our findings highlight the importance of adopting a broader perspective on living by considering the position of religion within the individual’s life space. Should researchers do so, we expect that different conclusions about the role of personal religiosity will be reached than have typically been found before.

The Impact of a Society’s Emphasis on Socializing Children for Religious Faith

This study involved 47 societies with various religious heritages, enabling the findings for personal religiosity to be observed independently from a given society’s dominant religion. Similar to other studies (Gebauer et al., 2012, 2017; Stavrova et al., 2013), we found evidence for the moderating role of societal religious contexts. Looking more widely across many religious heritages, we found that, however personal religiosity is measured, it plays out differently for a person’s happiness, trust of known others, and trust of strangers depending on a society’s emphasis on socializing children for religious faith (SPSC-RF). The higher a society’s SPSC-RF, the weaker the relationships between personal religiosity and these three measures of well-being.

These results were inconsistent with previous studies primarily focusing on the effect of absolute importance of religiosity, which revealed a strengthening effect of societal religious contexts on the positive links between personal religiosity and well-being (Gebauer et al., 2012, 2017; Stavrova et al., 2013). In contrast, we did not find consistent evidence regarding the strength and the direction of the moderating effect of societal religious contexts on the links of personal religiosity with subjective well-being and social trust. Instead, we found that the moderating effects were complicated, depending on how these constructs (i.e., societal religiosity, personal religiosity, well-being, and social trust) were measured. Despite the inconsistent findings, most evidence for the significant moderating patterns revealed the strengthening effects of societal religious contexts as measured by SPSC-RF (and societal RIR) on the negative effect of RIR.

Two features of societal training for religious faith may account for these effects: The first is the tendency of all religious ideologies to de-emphasize the pursuit of individual pleasure and narrow personal aggrandizement in this worldly existence, and instead to focus believers on spiritual development through self-denial (e.g., Murphy et al., 2021). The link between personal religiosity and happiness thus becomes attenuated or even reversely related. There was no attenuation of effects for life satisfaction and subjective health, however, since both personal aspects of well-being can be achieved in alternative ways by persons regardless of their personal religiosity. The inconsistent moderating effects of societal religious contexts on different well-being measures have also been observed in previous studies (e.g., Pirutinsky, 2013).

Secondly, we believe that personal religiosity leads to a detachment from over-investment in interpersonal relationships, focusing the believer on religious practice with co-religionists. This ingroup identity tends to build a barrier between those who identify themselves with a religious faith vis-a-vis others, lowering trust of strangers more strongly in societies training children for religious faith (Hogg et al., 2010). Known persons are also trusted less by persons in such societies, since even known others may not share one’s religious identity, especially in pluralistic societies.

Limitations and Future Directions

The present study focused on the relationships of personal religiosity to measures of subjective well-being and interpersonal trust. Using the present measures, our analytic models were able to explain 12%–16% of the total variance in subjective well-being and interpersonal trust, respectively. Given a wide range of factors contributing to individual subjective well-being (Larsen & Eid, 2008) and interpersonal trust (Rotenberg, 2019), our models (with above 10% explained variance) indicate a significant role for personal and societal religiosity on well-being.

We did not differentiate our respondents in terms of their personal religious affiliation or across the religious heritage of their societies. However, different religions emphasize different values, emotional experiences, beliefs, and practices (e.g., Cohen et al., 2006; Georgas et al., 2004; Tsai et al., 2007). These different personal and societal emphases probably relate differently to measures of a person’s subjective well-being and interpersonal trust.

Supporting this consideration, Kim-Prieto and Diener (2009) found that people from different religious affiliations (including Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and Jewish participants) demonstrated differences in the frequency of experiencing different positive and negative emotions. Diener et al. (2011) compared the link between religiosity and desirable outcomes among persons of four religious affiliations, that is, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. They found a non-significant link between personal religiosity and life evaluation among Muslim participants and a non-significant link between religiosity and negative feelings among Buddhist participants (Study 2). In light of these suggestive findings, we believe that future studies should further refine the links of personal religiosity to subjective well-being and interpersonal trust by including personal religious affiliation and societal religious heritage in their predictive equations.

While the links between personal religiosity with subjective well-being and the moderating role of societal contexts have been extensively examined across cultures (e.g., Gebauer et al., 2012, 2017; Stavrova et al., 2013), other types of outcomes may be further explored. As a case in point, the present study provided evidence for the close link between personal religiosity and different types of trust, a topic which has rarely been studied (Berggren & Bjørnskov, 2011). Religion provides guiding principles for how individuals behave in many different domains of life (for a review, Regnerus, 2003), and societal contexts exert notable influences on different personal outcomes (e.g., Hamamura et al., 2017; Lun & Bond, 2013). So, it is likely that personal religious affiliation and societal religious heritage also shape the relationship of personal religiosity with different outcome variables across political, social, environmental, and health-related domains. Future studies should further examine the effect of religion across cultures by moving beyond outcomes related to subjective well-being (see Saroglou, 2019).

Conclusions

Using representative samples from 47 societies (nations and territories), the present study explored the moderating role of socialization contexts for religious faith on the individual-level relationships between personal religiosity and different aspects of subjective well-being and trust. We found different patterns of results when personal religiosity was assessed by the absolute or the relative importance of religion in a person’s life, arguing that the relative measure of religion’s importance carried greater ecological validity.

We further showed that a society’s emphasis on training children for religious faith moderated the strength in the relationships of personal religiosity to subjective health, trust of known others, and trust of strangers. This study thus highlighted the cross-cultural variability of the links between an individual’s religiousness and associated outcomes, sounding the need for further research on personal religiosity across different types of societal contexts and psychological outcomes.

Supplemental Material

sj-doc-1-jcc-10.1177_00220221221079875 – Supplemental material for Societal Emphasis on Religious Faith as a Cultural Context for Shaping the Social-Psychological Relationships Between Personal Religiosity and Well-Being

Supplemental material, sj-doc-1-jcc-10.1177_00220221221079875 for Societal Emphasis on Religious Faith as a Cultural Context for Shaping the Social-Psychological Relationships Between Personal Religiosity and Well-Being by Liman Man Wai Li, Xiaobin Lou and Michael Harris Bond in Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Liman Man Wai Li

Xiaobin Lou

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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