Authentic happiness theory supported by impact of religion on life satisfaction: A longitudinal analysis with data for Germany

By B. Headey, Jürgen Schupp, Ingrid Tucci, Gert G. Wagner. Social Science Research Network, 2010

118 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Survey, this paper assesses the relationship between life satisfaction and religious practice. It is shown that individuals who become more religious over time record long term gains in life satisfaction, while those who become less religious record long term losses. This result holds net of the effects of personality traits, and also in fixed effects panel models. The paper has significant implications for the current paradigm theory in SWB research, namely set-point theory. This theory holds that the long term SWB of adult individuals is stable, because SWB depends on personality traits and other stable genetic factors. New evidence in this paper about the effects of consciously chosen life goals, including religious ones, on SWB is hard to reconcile with set-point theory. It is more in line with authentic happiness theory.

Subfields: Social Psychology, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a98d17e034ea849f3cd2322c4263c3f672cd658b

Citations in the corpus

• The religion paradox: if religion makes people happy, why are so many dropping out? (2011, unknown): “One analysis of data from the German Socio-Economic Survey Panel found that, indeed, “individuals who become more religious over time record long term gains in life satisfaction, while those who become less religious record long term losses” (Headey, Schupp, Tucci, & Wagner, 2010, p. 73).”