ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
National religiosity eases the psychological burden of poverty.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- The Spiritual Dimension of Palliative Care Patients and Their Caregivers in a Compassionate Community in Two Brazilian FavelasJournal of religion and health · 2026Article
- Exploring Free Will Beliefs and Attitudes Towards Punishment in Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The Relationship between Religious Text, Religious Tolerance, and Mental Health in different Religious Groups of Pakistan: An Exploratory Mixed Methods Study.Journal of religion and health · 2025Article
- Advancing the psychology of social class with large-scale replications in four countries.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- The immorality of too much money.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
- The Relationship Between Religious Coping, Spirituality, and Disease Self-Management Among Parkinson's Patients in Turkey.Journal of religion and health · 2024Article
- Religiosity and Risk of Parkinson's Disease in England and the USA.Journal of religion and health · 2023Article
- Preventable Disease, the Case of Colorado: School District Demographics and Childhood Immunizations.Vaccines · 2022Article
- Article
- Cross-National Comparison of Religion as a Predictor of COVID-19 Vaccination Rates.Journal of religion and health · 2022Article
- Bridging the Gap of the Afri-Eurocentric Worldview Divide in a Postcolonial South Africa.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Cross-Cultural Measurement of Positive and Negative Emotions in Adolescence: Evidence from Three Countries.Journal of happiness studies · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
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Abstract
Lower socioeconomic status (SES) harms psychological well-being, an effect responsible for widespread human suffering. This effect has long been assumed to weaken as nations develop economically. Recent evidence, however, has contradicted this fundamental assumption, finding instead that the psychological burden of lower SES is even greater in developed nations than in developing ones. That evidence has elicited consternation because it suggests that economic development is no cure for the psychological burden of lower SES. So, why is that burden greatest in developed nations? Here, we test whether national religiosity can explain this puzzle. National religiosity is particularly low in developed nations. Consequently, developed nations lack religious norms that may ease the burden of lower SES. Drawing on three different data sets of 1,567,204, 1,493,207, and 274,393 people across 156, 85, and 92 nations, we show that low levels of national religiosity can account for the greater burden of lower SES in developed nations. This finding suggests that, as national religiosity continues to decline, lower SES will become increasingly harmful for well-being-a societal change that is socially consequential and demands political attention.
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