Could Wealth Make Religiosity Less Needed for Subjective Well-Being? A Dual-Path Effect Hypothesis of Religious Faith Versus Practice

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Xiaofang Zheng¹  Mengjiao Song²  Hao Chen³ 

[1] Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, United States;Department of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States;Department of Social Psychology, Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University

关键词: subjective well-being;    religious faith;    religious practice;    income;    GDP;    World Value Survey;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01636

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Religiosity is important for religious people to maintain their subjective well-being (SWB). We propose a dual-path effect hypothesis to explore different working mechanisms of religious faith and practice on benefiting people’s SWB. Religious faith can promote SWB mainly via an intrinsic meaning-making path although religious practice can promote SWB via both an intrinsic meaning-making path and an extrinsic capital-accumulating path. If the dual-path effect hypothesis stands, then the role of religious practice in influencing SWB should be partly substituted by good economic status, but the role of religious faith should not. Then, only the effect of religious practice would be moderated by wealth. Results show that people’s individual income and national GDP have significant moderating effects on the relationship between religious practice and SWB, but they had no moderating effect on the association between religious faith and SWB, indicating wealth could be an alternative source of accumulating capital and social resources between religious practice and SWB. Results provide important evidence for the dual-path effect hypothesis. The findings uniquely contribute to the literature of religiosity, SWB, and their connections with wealth. Implications for future research are also discussed.

【 授权许可】

CC BY