Home might be where the heart is, but church is a good place to find happiness.
Social scientists have long noted that people who are more religious profess greater satisfaction with life, and a new study led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison claims to find why this is so.
Religion’s key contribution to well-being is the social aspect of church life rather than theology or spirituality, said assistant professor of sociology Chaeyoon Lim.
“We find that friendships built in religious congregations are the secret ingredient in religion that makes people happier,” Lim said in a release Tuesday about the study. “To me, the evidence substantiates that it is not really going to church and listening to sermons or praying that makes people happier, but making church-based friends and building intimate social networks there.”
The study, “Religion, Social Networks and Life Satisfaction,” used survey data representative of U.S. adults in 2006 and 2007.
The study, which looked at mainline Protestant, Evangelical Protestant and Catholic traditions, appears in the December issue of American Sociological Review. Researchers found similar patterns among Jews and Mormons, Lim said, but the sample size was much smaller.
Lim and study co-author Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard University, found:
— 33 percent of people who attend religious services weekly and have three to five close friends in their congregation report that they are “extremely satisfied” with their lives.
— 19 percent of people who attend services weekly but have no close friends in the congregation report they are “extremely satisfied.”
— 23 percent of people who attend services only several times a year but have three to five close friends in the congregation are “extremely satisfied.”
— 19 percent of people who never attend religious services and have no close church friends say they are “extremely satisfied.”
“One of the important functions of religion is to give people a sense of belonging to a moral community based on religious faith,” Lim said. “This community, however, could be remote and abstract unless one has an intimate circle of friends who share a similar identity.”
Electa Draper: 303-954-1276 or edraper@denverpost.com
