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Extrinsic Religious Orientation and Well-Being: Is Their Negative Association Real or Spurious?

  • Original Paper
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Review of Religious Research

Abstract

Turning to religion to seek its social benefits has been associated with poor psychological well-being. Researchers have concluded that endorsing this extrinsic and social orientation toward religion is inauthentic and unhealthy. However, few studies have focused on extrinsic-social religious orientation’s negative relationship with well-being, leaving open the possibility that their relationship is spurious. The present study argues that people endorsing an extrinsic-social religious orientation also perceive lower levels of social support in their lives, thus their turning to religion to fill this social void. As social support is important for healthy psychological functioning, perceived social support may be the critical third variable explaining why extrinsic-social religious orientation appears to have psychological costs. This study supported our expectations among undergraduates in two countries: the United States (N = 156) and the Republic of Ireland (N = 255). There were negative bivariate associations between extrinsic-social religious orientation and both perceived social support and emotional well-being. Accounting for the effects of perceived social support, however, reduced the association between the extrinsic-social religious orientation and well-being to non-significance. Thus, people endorsing an extrinsic and social orientation toward religion tend to have poor well-being because they perceive less supportive relationships in their lives.

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Notes

  1. Given that there is a long history of measuring extrinsic religiosity as a single factor, we used confirmatory factor analysis to test whether our approach of estimating two-factors (i.e., extrinsic-personal and extrinsic-social) rather than a single factor was justifiable empirically. In both the US and Republic of Ireland samples, we found that the two-factor model fit the data well, while the single factor model had unacceptable fit.

  2. Four of the items in the Social Provisions Scale include the term “well-being.” For example, one such item asks participants whether they agree or disagree with the following statement: “I have close relationships that provide me with a sense of emotional security and well-being.” In order to ensure that these four items were not inflating the association between perceived social support and emotional well-being, we conducted analyses that mirror those presented in this paper with a reduced form of this scale omitting these four items. The pattern of results did not change substantively. We chose to use the full scale for the results presented in this paper as the full Social Provisions Scale has been widely used and validated.

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Acknowledgments

This research was partially supported by funding from Hobart and William Smith Colleges’ Charles H. Salisbury Jr. Endowed Internship Award. We would like to acknowledge our appreciation for the assistance provided by Drs. Brian M. Hughes and Siobhán Howard.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Social Psychology (MS 300), University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, 89557, USA

    Michael J. Doane

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV, 89557, USA

    Marta Elliott

  3. Department of Psychology, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY, 14456, USA

    Portia S. Dyrenforth

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  1. Michael J. Doane
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  2. Marta Elliott
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  3. Portia S. Dyrenforth
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Correspondence to Michael J. Doane.

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Doane, M.J., Elliott, M. & Dyrenforth, P.S. Extrinsic Religious Orientation and Well-Being: Is Their Negative Association Real or Spurious?. Rev Relig Res 56, 45–60 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-013-0137-y

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