Within-person relationship between religiosity and life satisfaction: A 20-year study

Abstract

Abstract Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have documented positive associations between religiosity and well-being. This study sought to reinvestigate the temporal relationship between religiosity and life satisfaction, utilizing the random-intercept cross-lagged panel model, which partitions the variance into between- and within-person components. The data were drawn from a nationally representative survey of American adults (N\xa0=\xa04167) collected 3 times during about 2 decades. Consistent with previous cross-sectional studies, a positive but weak association was found between religiosity and life satisfaction at the between-person level. However, within-person estimates (i.e., lagged cross-relations) were not significant, suggesting the absence of (Granger) causal relationships between religiosity and life satisfaction in this sample.