title: What Mediates the Relationship Between Religious Service Attendance and Aspects of Well-Being?
abstract: Religious service attendance predicts increased well-being across a number of studies. It is not clear, however, whether this relationship is due to religious factors such as intrinsic religiosity or due to nonreligious factors such as social support or socially desirable responding. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between religious service attendance and well-being while simultaneously examining intrinsic religiosity, social support, and socially desirable responding as potential mediators of the relationship. A sample of 855 participants (71 % female, average age 19.5) completed questionnaires assessing religiosity, social support, socially desirable responding, and well-being. Path models were estimated using maximum likelihood estimation to analyze the data. Intrinsic religiosity was the strongest mediator of the relationship between religious service attendance and depressive and anxiety symptoms. This suggests that the mental health benefits of religious service attendance are not simply the result of increased social support or a certain response style on questionnaires; rather, it appears that the relationship is at least partly the result of people trying to live their religion in their daily lives.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University, 284 TLRB, Provo, UT, 84602, USA. steffen@byu.edu.
authors.forename: Patrick R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Steffen
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA.
authors.forename: Kevin S
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Masters
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Brigham Young University, 284 TLRB, Provo, UT, 84602, USA.
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Baldwin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D012928:Social Desirability; D012944:Social Support; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Intrinsic religiosity; Mediation; Religious service attendance