how does religosity change over life course

by Dr. Alden Brown 7 min read

Religion can do amazing things for a person. From increasing their gratitude for the many good things in their life to lengthening their actual lifespan, religion can completely change a person’s life. No wonder it has stuck around since the dawn of history.

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How can religion change your life?

Religion can do amazing things for a person. From increasing their gratitude for the many good things in their life to lengthening their actual lifespan, religion can completely change a person’s life. No wonder it has stuck around since the dawn of history. Stephanie Hertzenberg is a writer and editor at Beliefnet.

Do religious people live longer than non religious people?

Believe it or not, people who are religious tend to live longer live than those who are purely secular. People who adhere to a religion are more likely to avoid excessive alcohol consumption, drugs and other unhealthy habits.

What are the benefits of religion in our life?

People who adhere to a religion are more likely to avoid excessive alcohol consumption, drugs and other unhealthy habits. As they are usually more thankful as well, they also gain all the benefits of living a more grateful life such as lowered blood pressure and a strengthened immune system.

How does social class affect the stages of life course?

Social location in society—social class, race and ethnicity, and gender—affects how well people fare during the stages of the life course. Adams, E. J. (2010).

How does religious change a person?

Depending on where you live, religion may also make you feel better about yourself by making you feel part of your larger culture. People who are religious have higher self-esteem and better psychological adjustment than people who aren't, according to a January 2012 study.

How does religiosity enhance well being?

Individuals who are more committed to their religious faith and spiritual convictions are happier, healthier, and have more coping resources at their disposal than those for whom religion and spirituality are less important (Ellison & Fan, 2008; Patrick & Kinney, 2003; Levin & Chatters, 1998; Myers & Diener, 1995).

What are the benefits of religiosity?

Religion gives people something to believe in, provides a sense of structure and typically offers a group of people to connect with over similar beliefs. These facets can have a large positive impact on mental health—research suggests that religiosity reduces suicide rates, alcoholism and drug use.

Does religiousness increase with age?

They found that religious participation declined in adolescence, stabilized in midlife, and then increased in later life, before finally declining in very old age.

How important is religion in your life?

Religion helps in creating an ethical framework and also a regulator for values in day to day life. This particular approach helps in character building of a person. In other words, Religion acts as an agency of socialization. Thus, religion helps in building values like love, empathy, respect, and harmony.

How can religion help you understand the meaning of your life?

Religion can provide a sense of increased purpose in life for people who are socially disconnected. New research suggests that having a firmly held religious belief can provide a sense of increased purpose in life among those who are socially disconnected.

How does religion have an impact on society?

It strengthens individuals, families, communities, and society as a whole. It significantly affects educational and job attainment and reduces the incidence of such major social problems as out-of-wedlock births, drug and alcohol addiction, crime, and delinquency.

How does faith impact your life?

With religion often perceived as being at the core of conflicts around the globe, evidence shows that religion and faith can be invaluable in promoting tolerance, respect, understanding and reconciliation. They represent a powerful positive force in the prevention, management and resolution of conflict.

What can you learn from religion?

1) Understanding religion helps us to understand other people and their cultures. Religion concerns what people believe is most true and most meaningful in life; it powerfully shapes culture and deeply influences people s behavior.

What affects religiosity?

Religious FactorsGender Roles.Social Workers.Cultural Factors.Cyclones.Caregiver.Economic Factors.

Which is an effect of religiosity on older adults?

Religiosity and spirituality has been shown to relate to depressive and anxiety outcomes, particularly among older persons (Bergin, 1983, Braam et al., 1999, Koenig, 1989, Koenig, 2013, Koenig, 1998, Lucchetti et al., 2011a, Mueller et al., 2001, Seybold and Hill, 2001).

How does religion affect aging?

As the above research has shown, the role of religion, spirituality and/or belief can have numerous positive outcomes for older adults including enhanced health and well-being, greater capacity to cope, social support, and opportunities to participate in society.

How do parents who are religiously unaffiliated make decisions about their children?

The article identifies four distinct worldviews among unaffiliated parents and identifies five different strategies that parents use to incorporate religion in the lives of their children. The article then analyzes the relationship between parent worldviews and actions, with particular attention to secular unaffiliated parents who incorporate religion in the upbringing of their children and to religious unaffiliated parents who do not. In addition to providing empirical data about unaffiliated parents, the article engages the wider debate about what it means to be religious or secular. It calls for more attention to salience, not just of religion but of secular worldviews, and offers parent actions vis-a-vis the religious upbringing of their children as a concrete measure of how much religion matters. © 2013 The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Association for the Sociology of Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] /* */

What are the factors that affect the rate of aging?

This chapter reviews the behavioral and psychosocial factors that influence the rate from a life span developmental perspective. Some factors are aging accelerators―they appear to hasten decline in specific organ systems and/or more general physiological processes. These include health behavior habits, such as smoking and obesity; and personological factors, such as hostility, depression, and anxiety. Other factors, less well understood, appear to decelerate the rate of aging or to promote healthy aging, including exercise, diets low in saturated fats and high in antioxidants, and, perhaps, psychosocial factors such as social support, sense of control, and emotional balance. A preliminary model of optimal aging is proposed that reflects a life span developmental perspective more closely than other theories of successful aging.

Is religion important for health?

While the influence of institutional religion has decreased over the last 40–50 years, research suggests that a substantial pro- portion of those not attending religious services continue to engage in religious and spiritual practices on their own and refer to religion as a very important aspect in their lives, and as linked to more positive health outcomes, particularly for those living with chronic conditions. This article provides a scoping review to not only highlight the research that views religion and spirituality as valuable tools for coping with chronic illness conditions, but also to highlight research that explores those who may experience some religious/spiritual doubts or a gra- dual loss of religiosity or spirituality with the diagnosis of chronic conditions. Regardless of a clinician’s beliefs, the authors argue that some awareness training of the value of religion and spirituality for some patients, can be beneficial. In a society facing an increasing plurality of faiths, this is deemed to be an invaluable discussion. In the end, clinical implications will be discussed.

Do people believe in God?

Most humans believe in a god, but many do not . Differences in belief have profound societal impacts. Anthropological accounts implicate bottom-up perceptual processes in shaping religious belief, suggesting that individual differences in these processes may help explain variation in belief. Here, in findings replicated across socio-religiously disparate samples studied in the U.S. and Afghanistan, implicit learning of patterns/order within visuospatial sequences (IL-pat) in a strongly bottom-up paradigm predict 1) stronger belief in an intervening/ordering god, and 2) increased strength-of-belief from childhood to adulthood, controlling for explicit learning and parental belief. Consistent with research implicating IL-pat as a basis of intuition, and intuition as a basis of belief, mediation models support a hypothesized effect pathway whereby IL-pat leads to intuitions of order which, in turn, lead to belief in ordering gods. The universality and variability of human IL-pat may thus contribute to the global presence and variability of religious belief.

Is religiosity a longitudinal or cross sectional model?

While many multidimensional models of religiosity have been proposed over the years across a range of samples, nearly all are cross-sectional; this prohibits the assessment of model change or stability over time, particularly with regard to developmental changes at critical junctures in the life course. Recently, a longitudinal, five-dimensional model of religiosity during adolescence was proposed and validated, making significant progress in this regard. This research note now attempts to replicate this model on the young adult sample from the same study. Using data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, results show support for a modified version of this typology over time––one that combines the two dimensions of religious practice and incorporates a number of cross-loadings between dimensions. Importantly, this model fits well across both adolescence and young adulthood, lending strong support for these four dimensions of religiosity, their indicators, and their persistence as valid measures across a decade of developmental change.

How do religious people work?

They meet for Bible studies, extra pujas or Hanukkah celebrations. Religious people tend to work to foster a sense of community among those of their same religion through both purely entertainment events such as church picnics and via more meaningful opportunities such as volunteering or mission work. All of these help religious people to feel like they are a part of a larger group and to develop the sort of social network and support system that is so important for mental health.

What does a religious person feel?

Even the average religious person tends to feel a sense of purpose. They do not have to be someone who is heavily motivated and determined to carve out a place in the world for themselves. They do not need to be deeply dedicated to and do a great deal of work for a specific cause that will make a difference in the lives of millions. They do not need to be in a place where they are clearly making a difference each day such as working in an emergency room where lives are saved daily. The average Joe who works in an office can feel that there is a plan laid out for his life. He is on Earth for a reason. His life is not simply a meaningless accident.

Why are religious people more thankful than secular people?

Religious people tend to be more thankful than their secular counterparts. Religions place an emphasis on being grateful for what one has over what one desires . This trains people of faith to focus on things for which they are thankful rather than obsessing over what they do not have yet.

Why is it important to be thankful for religion?

As they are usually more thankful as well, they also gain all the benefits of living a more grateful life such as lowered blood pressure and a strengthened immune system.

Why are religious people happier?

Given that religious people have built in social opportunities at their place of worship, better self-control, higher levels of gratitude and are more likely to have a sense of purpose in their lives , perhaps it is no surprise that they tend to be happier.

What is faith in recovery?

Faith is also a key component of many addiction recovery programs such as Alcoholic Anonymous. Religions everywhere encourage adherents to live by a specific set of morals and beliefs. These vary between religions, but there are numerous places where different religions’ belief systems overlap.

Is faith associated with transformation?

There is a reason faith is associated with transformation. Most people would tell you that arguments over whether or not religion has value go back millennia and are as old as religion itself. They would be, actually, incorrect. For most of human history, there was no such thing as an atheist to argue that religion was useless.

What are the stages of life?

The four stages of the life course are childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. Socialization continues throughout all these stages. What happens during childhood may have lifelong consequences. Traumatic experiences and other negative events during childhood may impair psychological well-being in adolescence and beyond ...

What is the most important stage of life?

Childhood. Despite increasing recognition of the entire life course, childhood (including infancy) certainly remains the most important stage of most people’s lives for socialization and for the cognitive, emotional, and physiological development that is so crucial during the early years of anyone’s life.

What are the stages of socialization?

However, socialization continues throughout the several stages of the life course, most commonly categorized as childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age . Within each of these categories, scholars further recognize subcategories, such as early adolescence and late adolescence, early adulthood and middle adulthood, and so forth.

Why do early maturers get into trouble?

Because their influence “rubs off,” early maturers get into trouble more often and are again more likely to also become victims of violence. Romantic relationships, including the desire to be in such a relationship, also matter greatly during adolescence. Wishful thinking, unrequited love, and broken hearts are common.

Why do teens hang out with older teens?

First, early puberty leads to stress, and stress leads to antisocial behavior (which can also result in violence against the teen committing the behavior). Second, teens experiencing early puberty ( early maturers) are more likely to hang out with older teens, who tend to be more delinquent because they are older.

How does trauma affect adolescence?

Traumatic experiences and other negative events during childhood may impair psychological well-being in adolescence and beyond and lead to various behavioral problems. Social location in society—social class, race and ethnicity, and gender—affects how well people fare during the stages of the life course.

How old is adulthood?

Adulthood is usually defined as the 18–64 age span. Obviously, 18-year-olds are very different from 64-year-olds, which is why scholars often distinguish young adults from middle-age adults. In a way, many young adults, including most readers of this book, delay entrance into “full” adulthood by going to college after high school and, for some, then continuing to be a student in graduate or professional school. By the time the latter obtain their advanced degree, many are well into their 30s, and they finally enter the labor force full time perhaps a dozen years after people who graduate high school but do not go on to college. These latter individuals may well marry, have children, or both by the time they are 18 or 19, while those who go to college and especially those who get an advanced degree may wait until their late 20s or early to mid-30s to take these significant steps.

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