Try getting religious about it! Self-described heathen John Tierney talks about religion and self-control in a report in The New York Times.
If I’m serious about keeping my New Year’s resolutions in 2009, should I add another one? Should the to-do list include, “Start going to church”?The report is very interesting. So what do you think, is self-control tied to religious belief or simply the rituals associated with organized religion?
This is an awkward question for a heathen to contemplate, but I felt obliged to raise it with Michael McCullough after reading his report in the upcoming issue of the Psychological Bulletin. He and a fellow psychologist at the University of Miami, Brian Willoughby, have reviewed eight decades of research and concluded that religious belief and piety promote self-control.
This sounded to me uncomfortably similar to the conclusion of the nuns who taught me in grade school, but Dr. McCullough has no evangelical motives. He confesses to not being much of a devotee himself. “When it comes to religion,” he said, “professionally, I’m a fan, but personally, I don’t get down on the field much.”
His professional interest arose from a desire to understand why religion evolved and why it seems to help so many people. Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that devoutly religious people tend to do better in school, live longer, have more satisfying marriages and be generally happier.
These results have been ascribed to the rules imposed on believers and to the social support they receive from fellow worshipers, but these external factors didn’t account for all the benefits. In the new paper, the Miami psychologists surveyed the literature to test the proposition that religion gives people internal strength.
“We simply asked if there was good evidence that people who are more religious have more self-control,” Dr. McCullough. “For a long time it wasn’t cool for social scientists to study religion, but some researchers were quietly chugging along for decades. When you add it all up, it turns out there are remarkably consistent findings that religiosity correlates with higher self-control.”
2 comments:
i think this is a valid point about "religion" ... or rather the structure that religion provides.
my feelings are really mixed about this. i think that a "spiritual practice" is fine. actually, i think that is more than fine. but it's when one looks to "religion" to answer definitively the questions that are essentially unanswerable, that people get into trouble.
it's really a lazy person's "out." and i think that "going to church" has no relevance at all. if one actively observes and practices the essentials of what the three major religions taught in terms of of self-reflection, peace, understanding, acceptance, then that's ok.
my preference is a more eastern-looking view such as buddhism, taoism or the like, but the religions of the western world do have some good things to say for themselves. they are not entirely bad.
but bottom line is that "going to church" because you think it will make you a better person in 2009 is total nonsense. in my humble opinion.
I don't really know what to think. I suppose if one thought there was some sort of external reward or punishment for their behavior - in this case sticking to a resolution - then belief has that advantage. Kind of like having a diet or exercise buddy.
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