Religiosity, psychosocial factors, and well-being: an examination among a aational sample of Chileans

Abstract

This study analyzes the association between public religiosity or attendance to collective rituals, private religiosity or praying, and satisfaction with life in a representative sample of the Chilean population. Religiosity was associated to low income and socioeconomic status, being older and female, variables that were negatively associated to satisfaction with life. However, attendance to collective religious rituals was associated to satisfaction with life, while private religiosity was unrelated, supporting that it is the social aspect of religion that benefits well-being. Controlling for gender, age and socioeconomic variables, public religiosity predicts specifically satisfaction with life. Attendance to religious rituals was associated to high social support, low negative and high positive affect, as well as to personality traits of Consciousness and Low Neuroticism, all variables associated to wellbeing. It was also associated to low Extroversion and low positive life events changes and unrelated to negative life events. Mediational analysis that included all variables related to public religiosity (main predictor) and to satisfaction with life (dependent variable) showed that attendance to religious rituals has direct effect on well being and significant indirect effect trough high social support, high positive affect and low negative affect. Results are discussed in the framework of a socio-emotional approach to positive effect of religion on wellbeing and by respect to the role of public rituals in the Chilean collectivistic culture.