Institute for Disaster Management and Reconstruction, Sichuan University, Sichuan 610200, China.
School of Journalism, Sichuan University, Sichuan 610200, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 Nov 6;16(22):4308. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16224308.
The relationship between religion and happiness has been seriously understudied in non-Western and non-Islamic societies. Taking religious identity and religious practice as strata, the 2015 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) data were used to examine the predicting power of health, politics, and social relationships with regard to happiness in four different groups, as follows: People with a religious identity and practice, people with no religious identity but with a practice, people with a religious identity but no practice, and people with neither a religious identity nor practice. Multiple regression analyses were conducted using the Ordinary Least Squares method. The results demonstrate the influence of the independent variables in the four groups, thus confirming the expectation that different religious practices, as well as identities, play a vital role in moderating the degree of happiness. Physical and mental health are significant predictors of happiness regardless of different religious situations, with the effect of mental health here found to be greater in magnitude on happiness than that of physical health. Political participation was not found to be related to happiness, but having a left-wing political attitude did emerge as strongly predicting happiness. The results concerning social relationships further consolidate the hypothesis that religious practice should be taken into consideration separately from religious identity. This study indicates the importance of further investigating religious practice as an independent factor in religious studies in the context of Chinese society.
宗教与幸福感之间的关系在非西方和非伊斯兰教社会中一直没有得到充分研究。本研究以宗教认同和宗教实践为分层变量，利用 2015 年中国综合社会调查（CGSS）的数据，检验了健康、政治和社会关系在以下四个不同群体的幸福感中的预测能力：有宗教认同和实践的人、没有宗教认同但有实践的人、有宗教认同但没有实践的人、既没有宗教认同也没有实践的人。采用普通最小二乘法进行多元回归分析。结果表明，四个群体中的自变量具有影响力，从而证实了不同宗教实践以及身份在调节幸福感程度方面起着重要作用的预期。身心健康无论在不同的宗教环境下都是幸福感的重要预测因素，心理健康对幸福感的影响程度大于身体健康。政治参与与幸福感无关，但具有左翼政治态度的人更幸福。关于社会关系的结果进一步证实了这样一种假设，即宗教实践应该与宗教认同分开考虑。本研究表明，在中国社会背景下，宗教研究应该进一步将宗教实践作为一个独立因素进行探讨。
