Religion, Mental Health, and College

Here is another paper that I wrote this semester. Not usually the topic of study I jump over, and I will more than likely rewrite many aspects of this to expand beyond just college students (especially with additional sources I came across after the matter of fact) one day, but for now, I hope y'all enjoy.

Religion, Mental Health, and College

College and university students are no stranger to stress, depression, and a myriad of events that cause some mental and emotional stress in some way. It should be no surprise, either; college is difficult, especially with more complicated majors dealing with more advanced technology today, it is only expected that college will continue to be a stressful environment.

There are many tools that universities have provided to students and faculty to aid with this. Many campuses, for example, have therapists that students can have access to during the semester to gain some mental or emotional support. Most professors are likewise willing to accommodate due dates, assignments, and occasionally course schedules to help struggling students, whether it be emotionally or scholastically, and these resources offered by the institutional campus and individual professors have been and likely will yet be invaluable aid to students in years to come. However, I will argue in the course of this paper that one of the biggest aids available to college students does not come in what a campus can offer students, but from what students can offer themselves through religious activity and belief. Religiosity positively affects students’ abilities to maintain a grasp on their mental and emotional well-being and can ultimately affect their entire college experience for the better.

While some studies have shown that religiosity strictly is positive, others have found that, while the positive benefits of being actively religious far outweigh the negatives, religiosity doesn’t always fix everything, nor should it be seen as a quick panacea to end all mental or emotional stresses at college. I will review those studies here, showing the benefits of each and also discussing where it has been shown that a student’s religious behavior or beliefs may not always be immediately seen as beneficial, although most certainly beneficial in the long run.

Religion and the Student: Understanding the Methodology of the Examined Studies

Over the course of the many studies that have been done regarding religiosity to mental health in college students, however, it should come as no surprise that findings have been mixed and some researchers have found inconclusive results and were not able to come to any strict conclusion about how religiosity truly affects college students, if at all.

While these studies may have been inconclusive, it is always important to look at them in terms of what else has been said and how the authors of these studies have used their resources and potential biases that they may have. In scope of the greater studies, these inconclusive (or occasionally negative) reports of religion’s influence on a student’s mental and emotional health ultimately do not paint the full picture of what is or can be said regarding this complex topic.

One struggle that is faced when dealing with these studies is the complexity of attempting to accurately pinpoint and study this topic. How does one define religiosity? How does each student define it and see themselves in terms of religious belief and activity? I, for example, may see religiosity as practicing in your faith, attending worship services, and reading your sacred texts, whereas another student may not see the importance of attending worship services while still viewing themselves as perfectly and devoutly religious. The answer will almost always be different for every student, and each study has to account for that in some way. Most frequently, they will leave it generally open ended and ask a few arbitrary questions to for a student to express how they feel they align with religion.

Despite the challenges researchers have faced, however, the results of their studies are generally accurate and well defined. One study simply asked students to rate themselves from a scale of one to five, with one being secular and a five being devoutly religious. While this approach may appear “somewhat simplistic, this means of measuring religiosity is widely accepted in social research.”[1] Another study asked students ten true or false questions that helped them define their own religiosity, which likewise is an accepted medium to gather data in social science.[2]

Changing Worldviews and Mental Health in College

Another variable that often is taken for granted is how religiosity can change over the course of a college experience and to what degree it will change. This is important to remember when trying to keep track of how it affects mental health; if, for example, one’s religious beliefs or tendencies are changing, then it would add complications to how the data can be gathered.

In addition, during times of change, mental health is in a more vulnerable state. Even if you are simply moving to a new town, stresses are raised as you find yourself in a new setting, full of unfamiliar people and places. This is especially true for times of change to one’s worldview or beliefs. Questions arise about what was once thought to be true, and mental health can often hit a low point during these faith journeys.

Religious beliefs are by nature often in motion and fluid, especially as new information is learned. Some have put forward the idea that, in the grand scheme of things, religion can be a stumbling block for college students, especially considering the mental low points that can be experienced as worldviews are questioned. Since college is a time for students to experiment and try new things, they argue that religion is something that can, and perhaps should, be left on the doorstep as students try to discover who they truly are with the additional freedoms that come from living away from home, perhaps for the first time in their lives. One former Yale student, Anatoly Brekhman, rhetorically asked, “how can [students] have limits when the whole point of college is experimentation…? [Or when] the expectation is that you come here and you drop all your limits and you experiment because that’s the nature of college?”[3]

Challenges that may come to students’ religiosity can come from both professors and fellow peers. Brekhman, for example, saw dropping one’s limits as a good thing despite what your upbringing may have been. She is not alone, either. Across all campuses there are some students who likewise believe that college is a place where past beliefs should be challenged, and many often do not hide their disdain for those students who still hold on to their religious convictions.[4] Likewise, professors’ biases can affect students as well, and, generally speaking, students who major in subjects where challenges to their beliefs are frequent and likely “are the most likely to diminish their religiosity.”[5] However, most college faculty are accepting of students’ various preexisting belief systems and backgrounds with only a few exceptions, and often do not adversely show any signs of intolerance as they invite students to push themselves and think critically.[6]

Even though these challenges to religiosity do come, studies show that most students will not come away from college with changed beliefs. According to Jonathan P. Hill, who performed a study geared at how college students viewed creationism versus the theory of evolution, “there is no evidence that attending college (including attending a religiously affiliated institution)… has any influence on whether person changes his or her beliefs.” According to his findings, religious students are just as likely to switch to creationist views as they are to switch to evolutionist ideas. While different religions offered different statistics for those who did change their opinions on this topic, there is no evidence that this ultimately affected their religious conversion.[7]

As John Gee noted, “college, in and of itself, does not promote disaffiliation or decline in importance of religion.” Furthermore, alternative opinions were not always found to be persuasive by those students when presented to them by their professors or peers. Students still remain independent thinkers, and more often than not, former beliefs outweigh potential new worldviews.[8]

All in all, challenges to students’ worldviews are often resolved or, ultimately, insignificant to their beliefs and do not pose a serious threat to their mental or emotional health. In fact, it is likely that despite these challenges, religiosity is increased among college students, which in turn can increase their capacity to deal with challenges to mental health, as will be shown later in this paper.

Forms of Religiosity Among College Students

Another aspect of studying religiosity’s effect on college students is to what degree, or rather, how religion affects them in their daily lives. Leah Powers and Cliff McKinney identified two forms of religiosity that were tested against each other to see how each affected college students, namely, intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity.[9]

Intrinsic religiosity can generally be defined as real, sincere belief in the student’s religion, and they are actively trying to follow the tenants of their belief not because they need to, but because they actually desire to. Extrinsic religiosity, on the other hand, is seen as a “is a means to some external end,” whether it be personal comfort or new relationships. Extrinsic religiosity may not be sincere belief in a higher power, or it may be seen as a casual approach to attaining a relationship with it.[10] While a wide spectrum can be drawn from these two points, everyone will generally lean towards one side of the spectrum than another.

A lot of research has been done in the past comparing extrinsic versus intrinsic religiosity; however, results have generally been inconclusive when compared to other research and the general research available is often outdated. Powers and McKinney offered an insight to the modern college student in light of this past research, and their findings both support and contradict the older research that has been done.

Previous research, for example, has shown that those who are extrinsically religious are more likely to develop adverse mental health effects such as depression or other personality disorders, both harmless and harmful, whereas intrinsic religiosity tended to have the opposite effect.[11] Other papers have shown inconsistent results and led one researcher to note that a possible reason for this was that “positive effects of some kinds of religiosity are being balanced by negative effects of other kinds,” leading to “unimpressive” effects, perhaps due to the fluid nature of religiosity itself, or its hard-to-define characteristics.[12]

On the other hand, more modern research demonstrates that while there is a clear distinction in findings between the more intrinsically and extrinsically religious students, extrinsic religiosity does not adversely affect a student’s mental or emotional health to the level that Maltby and Day believed, and that as a whole, the hypothesis that extrinsic religiosity causes these adverse consequences could not be supported, as findings showed extrinsically religious students reporting both positive and negative results.[13]

That is not to say, however, that extrinsic religiosity comes with the benefits intrinsic religiosity offers. Both past and modern studies show that those who are intrinsically religious show less signs of depression or negative mental effects that come in life, and as a whole they did show less signs of the adverse consequences formerly thought to be tied to extrinsic religiosity. While extrinsically religiosity showed mixed results in this matter, those who were reported as being intrinsically religious were almost unanimously reporting positive mental and emotional health benefits.[14]

Religion's Effect on Anxiety and Stress

There was one exception to Powers’ and McKinney’s findings, however. Regarding anxiety in students, intrinsically religious students were just as susceptible to feelings of stress or anxiety as were the extrinsically religious. Powers and McKinney presented one potential reason for this outcome: while intrinsic religiosity may dampen anxiety in ways that affect those who are extrinsically religious, it might also come with its own stressors that cause anxiety, such as feelings of self-consciousness when one feels they have done something forbidden according to their religious beliefs.[15] While this may appear to be shocking in light of their findings, there could be a reason for these findings that can help clarify other research that has been done.

Dorota Kornas-Biela coauthored a study looking at what they defined as “psychological capital” and “psychological immunity” with regards to the religious tendencies that students had. Psychological capital can be defined as the outlook that one has on life in general and how susceptible to stressors they may be, whereas psychological immunity can be understood in different ways in academic thought. It, however, is most commonly defined as the ability to adapt in times of anxiety to avoid feeling overwhelmed.[16]

Their studies have found that religious practice and belief has shown positive effects on a students’ psychological capital, providing for them a brighter outlook on life and more ability to withstand feelings of depression that would otherwise hamper one’s psychological capital, with greater ability to maintain a positive outlook on life despite what stress or anxiety that they may have felt in the past or feel at the current time.

Psychological immunity, however, was not similarly affected by religiosity as was psychological capital. Even the religious students found themselves at times feeling overwhelmed by stress, and only age was a significant factor in positively supporting psychological immunity. This makes sense as well, since age comes with more experience that college freshmen often lack when it comes to how to effectively handle stress.[17] Anxiety, then may not just be a trade-off for the intrinsically religious as Powers and McKinney proposed, but rather can be attributed to a general lack of experience among undergraduate students in effectively handling stress because of their young age.

In addition, even though psychological immunity was not shown to be affected by religious practice or belief, “there is mounting evidence that religious cognitions and behaviors can offer effective resources for dealing with stressful events.”[18] These include greater self-esteem, capacity to overcome trials, and an overall outlook on life and sense of purpose. While psychological immunity or levels of anxiety may not be directly affected by religiosity, tools are provided by religiosity to help combat these feelings and help maintain a healthy mindset.

Depression and Search for Meaning

Further illuminating the work that Powers, McKinney, and others have done, further research has been done exclusively looking at the effects of religiosity and depression in college students. The findings have all been related: those who are more religious often are those who experience fewer symptoms of depression and face it at a much lower degree than those who are not religious. Sinjin Roming and Krista Howard, two researchers who explored this research, noted that in addition to more religious students reporting fewer depressive signs, the opposite was also true; those who reported being less religious were more likely to report feeling symptoms of depression.[19]

A possible reason that depression is less prevalent in religious students is the possibility that it provides the student with a sense of purpose and meaning in life. According to two psychology professors at California State University, Carol Molcar and Daniel Stumpfieg, a sense of purpose in life tends to be “higher among those whose world view was based upon a belief in a personal transcendent God.”[20] This sense of meaning in life that religion provides can often be a “protective factor” against depression among college students, and was just as effective at doing so regardless of the diverse backgrounds and cultures that each student may have.[21]

The presence of a purpose in life is directly tied to the well-being of the individual, and purpose in life is most prevalently found through religious participation and belief. Adding to that, however, is the quest for a purpose in life, which many college students can be familiar with. Even among the religious and irreligious, the search for meaning in life is common and often a long process. This search for purpose, however, is not shown to affect the mental well-being of students, only the end result does.[22] This is important for students to keep in mind if they ever feel themselves longing for something more and feel discouraged that there is not an immediate sense of relief that they can feel.

Conclusion

Overall, the effect that religion can have on college students is too great to be taken as coincidence. Religion is one of the greatest tools available to college students to combat depression, learn how to effectively overcome anxiety, and offers a deeper, more positive outlook on one’s life and a sense of purpose that comes with it. This is a widely accepted fact by multiple researchers, and many details of the research has stayed consistent over time as further research is done. While religion may be overlooked by many, it can be critical to students looking to better develop a healthy mindset and worldview.

My views of religion may not be the same as the student sitting across from me in any given classroom, but the benefits of practicing religion are offered to both of us nonetheless. College is a stressful place, and one of the best places to expand your worldview and learn new information. Some of that may affect your religious worldview, and other pieces of information may not have that influence. During this process of growth and learning, it is important for religiosity to flourish in order to maintain a better understanding of who the individual student is, what they can do to find happiness in difficult situations, and ultimately maintain some grounding against stress, anxiety, and depression. While not a panacea to all problems that may be faced or experienced, it remains as an invaluable aid to helping students have a successful college career.

NOTES

---

[1] Dorota Kornas-Biela, Klaudia Martynowska, and Leehu Zysberg, “Faith conquers all? Demographic and psychological resources and their associations with academic performance among religious college students,” British Journal of Religious Education 42, no. 4 (2020).

[2] Kaiser Ahmad Dar and Naved Iqbal, “Religious Commitment and Well-Being in College Students: Examining Conditional Indirect Effects of Meaning in Life,” Journal of Religion and Health 58, no. 6 (2017): 2290.

[3]  “Are You Charlotte Simmons?” Yale Alumni Magazine, March/April 2005.

[4] Robert J. Nash and DeMartha LaSha Bradley, “The Different Spiritualities of the Students we Teach,” in Douglas and Rhonda Jacobsen, American University in a Postsecular Age (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2008), 138.

[5] Jeremy E. Uecker, Mark D. Regnerus, and Margaret L. Vaaler, “Losing My Religion: The Social Sources of Religious Decline in Early Adult Years,” Social Sources 85, no. 4 (2007): 1669.

[6] Gary A. Tobin and Aryeh K. Weinberg, Profiles of the American University Vol. 2: Religious Beliefs and Behavior of College Faculty (San Francisco, CA: Institute for Jewish and Community Research, 2007), 16.

[7] Jonathan P. Hill, “Rejecting Evolution: The Role of Religion, Education, and Social Networks,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 53, no. 3 (2014): 591-592.

[8] John Gee, Saving Faith: How Families Protect, Sustain, and Encourage Faith (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Religious Studies Center, 2020), 76-79.

[9] Leah Power and Cliff McKinney,  “The Effects of Religiosity on Psychopathology in Emerging Adults: Intrinsic Versus Extrinsic Religiosity,” Journal of Religion and Health 53, no. 5 (2014): 1530.

[10] Powers et al., 1530.

[11] John Maltby and Liza Day, “Religious experience, religious orientation and schizotypy,” Mental Health, Religion & Culture 5, no. 2 (2002): 173.

[12] Allen E. Bergin, "Religiosity and Mental Health: A Critical Reevaluation and Meta-Analysis," Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy 9, no. 6 (1983): 11.

[13] Powers et al., 1535.

[14] Powers et al., 1534-1535.

[15] Powers et al., 1534-1535.

[16] Kornas-Biela et al.

[17] Kornas-Biela et al.

[18] Christopher G. Ellison and Jeffrey S. Levin, “The Religion-Health Connection: Evidence, Theory, and Future Directions,” Health Education & Behavior 25, no. 6 (1998): 707.

[19] Sinjin Roming and Krista Howard, “Coping with stress in college: an examination of spirituality, social support, and quality of life,” Mental Health, Religion & Culture 22, no. 8 (2019): 830.

[20] Carol C. Molcar and Daniel W. Stuempfig, “Effects of world view on purpose in life,” The Journal of Psychology 122, no. 4 (1998): 368.

[21] Naelys Luna and Thalia MacMillan, “The relationship between spirituality and depressive symptom severity, psychosocial functioning impairment, and quality of life: Examining the impact of age, gender, and ethnic differences,” Mental Health, Religion & Culture 18, no. 6 (2015): 521.

[22] Dar et al., 2294.