The Relationship Between Religion and Happiness Among German Students

Pastoral Psychology, Vol. 51, No. 4, March 2003 ( C 2003) The Relationship Between Religion and Happiness Among German Students Leslie J. Francis, 1,4 Hans-Georg Ziebertz, 2 and Christopher Alan Lewis 3 A sample of 331 students completed German editions of the Oxford Happiness Inventory and the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity, together with the short form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. These data provide no evidence for a relationship between religiosity and happiness among German students, contrary to the conclusions of recent studies that have employed the same indices in the UK and in the USA. KEY WORDS: religion; happiness; Oxford Happiness Inventory; personality; Eysenck. INTRODUCTION Happiness is an elusive concept of considerable interest to philosophers (McFall, 1989) as well as to psychologists (Argyle, 1987). Elusive concepts do not, however, form the basis for good empirical research. Empirical research into the psychological correlates of happiness is dependent on a rigorous theoretical discussion of the nature of happiness and an adequate operationalization of that discussion. Considerable progress has been made, both in refining the psychological construct of happiness and in measuring that construct through the development of the Oxford Happiness Inventory by Argyle, Martin, and Crossland (1989). 1 The Revd. Professor Leslie J. Francis is Director of the Welsh National Centre for Religious Education and Professor of Practical Theology, University of Wales, Bangor, UK. 2 Professor Dr. Hans-Georg Ziebertz is Professor of Practical Theology, University of Würzburg, Germany. 3 Dr. Christopher Alan Lewis is Lecturer in Psychology, University of Ulster at Magee College, Northern Ireland. 4 Address correspondence to Leslie J. Francis, Welsh National Centre for Religious Education, University of Wales, Bangor Normal Site, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2PX, Wales, UK; e-mail: L.J.Francis@Bangor.ac.uk. 273 0031-2789/03/0300-0273/0 C 2003 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

274 Francis, Ziebertz, and Lewis From a theoretical perspective, Argyle and Crossland (1987) suggest that happiness comprises three components: the frequency and degree of positive affect or joy; the average level of satisfaction over a period; and the absence of negative feelings, such as depression and anxiety. Working from this definition, they developed the Oxford Happiness Inventory by reversing the 21 items of the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Hock, & Erbaugh, 1961) and adding 11 further items to cover aspects of subjective well-being not so far included. Three items were subsequently dropped, leading to a 29-item scale. The test constructors report an internal reliability of 0.90 and a seven-week test-retest reliability of 0.78. Validity was established against happiness ratings by friends and by correlations with measures of positive affect, negative affect, and life satisfaction. A series of studies employing the Oxford Happiness Inventory in a range of different ways has confirmed the basic reliability and validity of the instrument and begun to map the correlates of this operational definition of happiness. For example, several studies have demonstrated the relationship between happiness and stable extraversion (Argyle & Lu, 1990a; Brebner, Donaldson, Kirby, & Ward, 1995; Francis, 1999; Francis, Brown, Lester, & Philipchalk, 1998; Furnham & Brewin, 1990; Furnham & Cheng, 1999; Lu & Argyle, 1991). Other studies have demonstrated the positive relationship between happiness and social competence (Argyle & Lu, 1990b), self-esteem, social skills and cooperativeness (Lu & Argyle, 1991), satisfaction with relationships with people from whom support had been received (Lu & Argyle, 1992), coping styles (Rim, 1993), locus of control (Noor, 1993), engagement in a serious leisure activity (Lu & Argyle, 1994), intensity of musical experience (Hills & Argyle, 1998a), participation in sports (Hills & Argyle, 1998b), self actualisation, self esteem, likelihood of affiliation, community feeling and self acceptance (Chan & Joseph, 2000), life regard, self esteem, life satisfaction and affiliative tendency (Hills & Argyle, 2001) and satisfaction with life, self esteem, sociability, and self-rated attractiveness (Neto, 2001). Lu and Argyle (1993) found an inverse relationship between happiness and the total time spent watching television. In a longitudinal study conducted among 36 adults between the ages of 17 and 61 years over a period of six weeks, Valiant (1993) found that happiness was more stable than depression. While depressive mood was significantly related to negative events and to a negative evaluation of these events, happiness was independent of life events and of the cognitive evaluation of these events. From a theological perspective, there is much within the Christian tradition to link religion and happiness. In the Old Testament, Psalm1 proclaims: Happy are those who reject the advice of evil men. Instead they find joy in obeying the Law of the Lord. According to Psalm 128: Happy is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways.

Relationship Between Religion and Happiness 275 Similarly, the Book of Proverbs proclaims: and Happy are these who keep my ways; Happy are those who trust in the Lord. In the New Testament, the words attributed to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount proclaim: Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires; God will satisfy them fully. According to Luke s gospel, Jesus exclaims: How happy are those who hear the word of God and obey it! In the Letter to the Romans, Paul writes: How happy are those whose wrongs God has forgiven, whose sins he has covered over! Critics of the Christian tradition, however, may suggest that religion detracts from happiness, by emphasising the individual s unworthiness, and sinfulness, or by drawing attention to the awesomeness of human mortality. For example, Psalm 51 laments: Against you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgement. Indeed I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. A series of recent studies has begun to test the validity of these two competing claims regarding the relationship between religion and happiness by examining the empirical relationship between scores recorded on the Oxford Happiness Inventory and scores recorded on the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (Francis, Lewis, Philipchalk, Brown, & Lester, 1995) among different populations. In view of the fact that individual differences in personality are known to be related both to scores on the Oxford Happiness Inventory (Francis, Brown, Lester, & Philipchalk, 1998) and to scores on the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (Francis, Lewis, Brown, Philipchalk, & Lester, 1995), this series of recent studies has also included the short form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck, Eysenck, & Barrett, 1985). The first study, reported by Robbins and Francis (1996), was conducted among 360 undergraduates in the UK. The second study, reported by Francis and Lester (1997), replicated the original study in a different cultural context among 212 undergraduates in the USA. The third study, reported by French and Joseph (1999), was conducted among 101 undergraduate students in the University of Essex. The fourth study, reported by Francis, Jones, and Wilcox (2000), employed three separate samples drawn from the UK: 994 secondary school pupils during the final year

276 Francis, Ziebertz, and Lewis of compulsory schooling attending four state-maintained secondary schools in the north east of England, 456 first-year undergraduate students attending one institution in Wales, and 496 members of a branch of the University of the Third Age in the south of England, a relatively informal education network for senior citizens. The fifth study, reported by Francis and Robbins (2000), was conducted among 295 participants attending a variety of workshops and courses on the psychology of religion, ranging in age from late teens to late seventies. All six samples demonstrated a significant positive correlation between happiness and attitude toward Christianity, after controlling for the possible contaminating influence of personality. A related study, reported by Francis and Katz (2002) administered the Hebrew translation of the Oxford Happiness Inventory together with the Katz-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism to a sample of 298 Hebrew-speaking undergraduate students in Israel. After taking into account individual differences in personality, these data demonstrate a significant positive correlation between religiosity and happiness. Argyle and Hills (2000) administered the Oxford Happiness Inventory together with a three-factor index of religious affect to a sample of 364 residents of Oxfordshire between the ages of 18 and 83 years. This study reported a positive correlation between happiness and the immanent factor of religious affect but no correlation between happiness and either the social factor of religiosity or the transcendent factor of religiosity. Against this background the aim of the present study is to explore whether the same pattern of relationships exists among personality, religion, and happiness among students in Germany. METHOD Sample A sample of 311 students attending the University of Würzburg completed a short questionnaire. Three-fifths (62%) of the respondents were female, and two-fifths (38%) were male; 6% were under the age of twenty, 90% were in their twenties, 3% were in their thirties, and 1% were aged forty or over. Nearly three-fifths (57%) of the respondents were Roman Catholic, 30% were Lutherans, 6% belonged to other religious groups, and 7% owned no religious affiliation. Measures The Oxford Happiness Inventory (Argyle, Martin, & Crossland, 1989) is a 29-item multiple choice instrument. Each item contains four options, constructed to reflect incremental steps defined as: unhappy or mildly depressed, a low level of happiness, a high level of happiness, and mania. The respondents are asked to

Relationship Between Religion and Happiness 277 pick out the one statement in each group which best describes the way you have been feeling over the past week, including today. Information on the internal consistency, reliability, and construct validity of the German translation of the instrument is provided by Lewis, Francis, and Ziebertz (2002). The Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity (Francis & Stubbs, 1987) is a 24-item Likert-type instrument, concerned with affective response toward God, Jesus, bible, prayer and church. Each item is rated on a five-point scale ranging from agree strongly, through agree, not certain and disagree, to disagree strongly, which has been shown to function reliably and validly in Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada and Australia (Francis, 1992; Francis, Lewis, Philipchalk, Brown & Lester, 1995; Maltby, 1994). Information on the psychometric properties of the German translation of this instrument is provided by Francis and Kwiran (1999). The Short Form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (Eysenck, Eysenck, & Barrett, 1985) is a 48-item instrument, employing a dichotomous scale (yes and no) and producing four 12-item indices of extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and a lie scale. The instrument has been shown to function reliably and validly in England, the USA, Canada, and Australia (Francis, Philipchalk, & Brown, 1991). Information on the psychometric properties of the German translation of this instrument are provided by Francis, Ziebertz, and Lewis (2003). Data Analysis The data were analyzed by means of the SPSS statistical package (SPSS Inc., 1988), using the frequency, correlation, and regression routines. RESULTS Table 1 presents the internal reliability coefficients (Cronbach, 1951) for the Oxford Happiness Inventory and the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity, together with the mean scale scores for males and females separately. These statistics demonstrate the high internal reliability of both instruments. In line with a number of other studies, no significant sex differences were found in mean scores Table 1. Reliability Coefficients and Mean Scale Scores Male Female Scale α M SD M SD t p< Oxford Happiness Inventory 0.8594 41.6 10.8 43.1 10.2 1.2 ns Attitude Toward Christianity 0.9642 78.0 24.4 81.8 22.2 1.5 ns Extraversion 0.8523 7.4 3.3 7.9 3.2 1.4 ns Neuroticism 0.8104 5.1 3.1 6.1 3.2 2.9.01 Psychoticism 0.4181 2.7 1.8 2.6 1.5 0.4 ns Lie scale 0.6379 3.8 2.2 4.0 2.3 0.8 ns

278 Francis, Ziebertz, and Lewis Table 2. Correlations with Happiness Variables r p< Extraversion +0.4588.001 Neuroticism 0.4615.001 Psychoticism 0.0545 ns Lie scale +0.1887.001 Attitude Toward Christianity +0.1296.025 on the Oxford Happiness Inventory (Argyle & Lu, 1990a; Furnham & Brewin, 1990; Francis, Brown, Lester, & Philipchalk, 1998; Lu & Argyle, 1991, 1992, 1993). Table 1 also presents the internal reliability coefficients for the extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and lie scales of the short form Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, together with the mean scale scores for males and females separately. These statistics demonstrate that all four scales achieve an acceptable level of internal consistency. The lower alpha coefficient for the psychoticism scale is consistent with the known difficulties in measuring this dimension of personality (Francis, Philipchalk & Brown, 1991). In line with general expectation, the females recorded higher neuroticism scores than the males (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1975). Table 2 presents the Pearson correlation coefficients between scores on the Oxford Happiness Inventory and scores of attitude toward Christianity, extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and the lie scale. In line with previous studies, scores on the Oxford Happiness Inventory were found to be positively correlated with extraversion, negatively correlated with neuroticism, and independent of psychoticism (Francis, Brown, Lester, & Philipchalk, 1998). Also in line with previous studies, the data demonstrated a significant positive correlation between scores on the Oxford Happiness Inventory and scores on the scale of attitude toward Christianity. Table 3 presents the multiple regression significance tests designed to explore the relationship between attitude toward Christianity and happiness after taking Table 3. Multiple Regression Significance Tests Increase Predictor Variables r 2 r 2 F p< B t p< Sex 0.0062 0.0062 1.6 ns +0.1048 +2.1.05 Extraversion 0.2235 0.2173 73.9.001 +0.3656 +7.1.001 Neuroticism 0.3571 0.1337 54.7.001 0.3598 6.8.001 Psychoticism 0.3595 0.0023 1.0 ns +0.0168 0.3 ns Lie scale 0.3740 0.0145 6.0.01 +0.1219 +2.4.05 Attitude toward 0.3791 0.0051 2.1 ns +0.0728 +1.5 ns Christianity

Relationship Between Religion and Happiness 279 into account the influence of sex, extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism, and the lie scale. These statistics demonstrate that the significant positive relationship between attitude toward Christianity and happiness suggested by the correlation matrix disappeared after controlling for personality. CONCLUSION The findings from the present study are inconsistent with the findings from the three studies reported by Robbins and Francis (1996), Francis and Lester (1997) and French and Joseph (1999) employing the same indices of happiness and religiosity among undergraduate students in Wales, the USA, and England, with the findings from the three samples reported by Francis, Jones, and Wilcox (2000) employing the same indices of happiness and religiosity among adolescents, young adults and adults in later life in the UK and with the findings of Francis and Robbins (2000) employing the same indices of happiness and religiosity among a sample of adults in the UK. Further studies employing the Oxford Happiness Inventory alongside indices of religiosity are now needed in Germany to explore whether religiosity and happiness are indeed unrelated in this country and not positively correlated as they appear to be in the UK and in the USA. In view of the well-established pattern of relationships between personality and happiness and between personality and religiosity, new studies concerned with the relationship between religiosity and happiness should continue to take individual differences in personality into account. REFERENCES Argyle, M. (1987). The psychology of happiness. London: Routledge. Argyle, M., & Crossland, J. (1987). Dimensions of positive emotions. British Journal of Social Psychology, 26, 127 137. Argyle, M., & Hills, P. (2000). Religious experiences and their relations with happiness and personality. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 10, 157 172. Argyle, M., & Lu, L. (1990a). The happiness of extraverts. Personality and Individual Differences, 11, 1011 1017. Argyle, M., & Lu, L. (1990b). Happiness and social skills. Personality and Individual Differences, 11, 1255 1261. Argyle, M., Martin, M., & Crossland, J. (1989). Happiness as a function of personality and social encounters. In J.P. Forgas and J.M. Innes (Eds), Recent advances in social psychology: An international perspective. (pp 189 203). North Holland: Elsevier Science Publishers. Beck, T., Ward, C.H., Mendelson, M., Hock, J., & Erbaugh, J. (1961). An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 7, 158 216. Brebner, J., Donaldson, J., Kirby, N., & Ward, L. (1995). Relationships between happiness and personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 19, 251 258. Chan, R., & Joseph, S. (2000). Dimensions of personality, domains of aspiration, and subjective wellbeing. Personality and Individual Differences, 28, 347 354. Cronbach, L.J. (1951). Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests. Psychometrika, 16, 297 334.

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