• DOI:10.1037/a0024402
Corpus ID: 1607859

The religion paradox: if religion makes people happy, why are so many dropping out?

@article{Diener2011TheRP,
  title={The religion paradox: if religion makes people happy, why are so many dropping out?},
  author={E. Diener and L. Tay and D. Myers},
  journal={Journal of personality and social psychology},
  year={2011},
  volume={101 6},
  pages={
          1278-90
        }
}

E. Diener, L. Tay, D. Myers

Published 2011

Psychology, Medicine

Journal of personality and social psychology

As we estimate here, 68% of human beings--4.6 billion people--would say that religion is important in their daily lives. Past studies have found that the religious, on average, have higher subjective well-being (SWB). Yet, people are rapidly leaving organized religion in economically developed nations where religious freedom is high. Why would people leave religion if it enhances their happiness? After controlling for circumstances in both the United States and world samples, we found that… CONTINUE READING

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