Religion, Mental Health, and Personality: A Review of Empirical Studies

The Relation Between Intrinsic Religious Faith and Psychological Well-Being

“…In particular, high levels of religious faith have been associated with authoritarianism (Dubey, 1986;Sanua, 1969), dogmatism (McNeel & Thorsen, 1985), and the inability to tolerate emotional ambiguity (Hassan & Khalique, 1981). Several authors, however, including Hogan and Elmer (1978) and Gartner, Larson, and Allen (1991), have suggested that these findings may reflect a liberal bias on the part of psychological researchers in which religious conservatism, rather than religious faith, has been linked to a more narrow and less tolerant way of thinking.…”

The relationship of spiritual maturity to level of object relations development and God image

“…In their studies of the relationship between religion and mental health, Sauna (1969) and Levin and Vanderpool (1987) concluded that there is little or no evidence for any clear relationship between religion and mental health. In his meta-analysis of studies dealing with religiosity and mental health, Bergin (1983) found that 47% of the effects tabulated demonstrated a positive relationship between religion and mental health, 30% evidenced no relationship, and 23% manifested a negative relationship.…”

Religion and Medicine II: Religion, Mental Health, and Related Behaviors

“…Both Scott (55) and Godin (22) point out that there are no scientific studies which show that religion is capable of serving mental health [11].…”