Examining Happiness and Church Attendance Among American Women
Professor G. Alexander Ross of the Institute for the Psychological Sciences has recently published a research article that examines the impact of regular church attendance on the decline in self-reported happiness among American women.
Research first reported in 2009 by two professors at the Wharton School of Management indicated that the change in the status of women experienced in American society over the past three and half decades has not resulted in an increase in women’s happiness.
In fact, self-reported happiness among women in the United States has declined during that period while happiness among men appears to have remained approximately the same.
Examining these findings further, Professor Ross found that this decline in happiness among American women over the period was influenced in two ways by the level of church attendance.
On one hand, there was a direct effect in which some of the decline in happiness among women was apparently due to the drop in church attendance over the three and half decades; on the other hand, there was a protective effect in which women who attended church more regularly were less subject to the various forces that produced the decline in happiness.
In short, it was only the group of women who attended church rarely or not at all who experienced a significant decline in happiness over the past three and a half decades.
The full text of the article is available at http://www.religjournal.com. Although downloading articles from this web site does require registration, there is no charge. To hear a podcast of Dr. Ross discussing the findings of his study, please visit Research on Religion at http://www.