A many-analysts approach to the relation between religiosity and well-being

Suzanne Hoogeveen*, Alexandra Sarafoglou, Balazs Aczel, Yonathan Aditya, Alexandra J. Alayan, Peter J. Allen, Sacha Altay, Shilaan Alzahawi, Yulmaida Amir, Francis-Vincent Anthony, Obed Kwame Appiah, Quentin D. Atkinson, Adam Baimel, Merve Balkaya-Ince, Michela Balsamo, Sachin Banker, Frantisek Bartos, Mario Becerra, Bertrand Beffara, Julia BeitnerTheiss Bendixen, Jana B. Berkessel, Renatas Berniunas, Matthew Billet, Joseph Billingsley, Tiago Bortolini, Heiko Breitsohl, Amelie Bret, Faith L. Brown, Jennifer Brown, Claudia C. Brumbaugh, Jacek Buczny, Joseph Bulbulia, Saul Caballero, Leonardo Carlucci, Cheryl L. Carmichael, Marco E. G. Cattaneo, Sarah J. Charles, Scott Claessens, Maxinne C. Panagopoulos, Angelo Brandelli Costa, Damien L. Crone, Stefan Czoschke, Ymkje Anna de Vries, Richard A. Klein, Muge Simsek, Eliot R. Smith, Andrea H. Stoevenbelt, Don van Ravenzwaaij, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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Abstract

The relation between religiosity and well-being is one of the most researched topics in the psychology of religion, yet the directionality and robustness of the effect remains debated. Here, we adopted a many-analysts approach to assess the robustness of this relation based on a new cross-cultural dataset (N = 10, 535 participants from 24 countries). We recruited 120 analysis teams to investigate (1) whether religious people self-report higher well-being, and (2) whether the relation between religiosity and self-reported well-being depends on perceived cultural norms of religion (i.e., whether it is considered normal and desirable to be religious in a given country). In a two-stage procedure, the teams first created an analysis plan and then executed their planned analysis on the data. For the first research question, all but 3 teams reported positive effect sizes with credible/confidence intervals excluding zero (median reported beta = 0.120). For the second research question, this was the case for 65% of the teams (median reported beta = 0.039). While most teams applied (multilevel) linear regression models, there was considerable variability in the choice of items used to construct the independent variables, the dependent variable, and the included covariates.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)237-283
Number of pages47
JournalReligion brain & behavior
Volume13
Issue number3
Early online date6-Jul-2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Keywords

  • Health
  • many analysts
  • open science
  • religion
  • MENTAL-HEALTH
  • PEOPLE HAPPY
  • LIFE
  • SPIRITUALITY
  • REPLICATION
  • INVOLVEMENT
  • PERSPECTIVE
  • CONSENSUS
  • HAPPINESS
  • CULTURE

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