Religious Attendance Boosts Optimism in Women

In a paper published in the latest issue of the Journal of Religion and Health, experts argue that regular attendance of religious services allows individuals to regain some optimism in the way they look at life.

The research also found that people attending church were less likely to be depressed than their peers who did not regularly attend service. At the same time, they also had a less cynical outlook on life in general, PsychCentral reports.

However, the new findings were only found to hold for women above the age of 50. At this point, researchers don't yet have data on how religious attendants affect senior men or younger individuals.

The new investigation was conducted as a follow-up study to a 2008 research that demonstrated an interesting correlation between life expectancy in women and routine attendance of religious services.

Data used in the new research were collected from the Women’s Health Initiative observational study, which contained women of diverse ethnic, socioeconomic and religious backgrounds. All test subjects were more than 50 years old.

A total of 92,539 post-menopausal women were surveyed in this study. Of these participants, those attending religious services on a regular basis were found to be 56 percent more likely to be optimistic about life, while also showing a 27 percent lower chance of suffering from depression.

“We looked at a number of psychological factors; optimism, depression, cynical hostility, and a number of subcategories and subscales involving social support and social strain. The link between religious activity and health is most evident in women, specifically older women,” Dr. Eliezer Schnall explains.

The expert holds an appointment as an associate professor of psychology at the Yeshiva University, in Manhattan. The work was funded by the National Heart, Blood, and Lung Institute (NHBLI), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Schnall explains that one potential explanation for the results of the new investigation could be that optimistic people are more likely to be drawn by the idea of a higher power. This tendency may have been present in the study group without the team knowing about it.

But there may also be other factors at work as well. “There’s evidence from other studies to suggest religious involvement may be particularly important in enhancing social interaction,” Schnall concludes.