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Does Believing in a Religion Relate To o cho l and f S C o o l g a n Zhang et al., Int J Sch Cog Psychol 2017, 4:4 n i r t i u v International Journal of School and e DOI: 10.4172/2469-9837.1000200 o J P l s a y n ISSN: 2469-9837 c o h i t o a l o n r g y e t n I Cognitive Psychology Research Article Open Access Does Believing in a Religion Relate to Individuals ‘ Mental Health? An Initial Study among Chinese College Students Jie Zhang*, Sibo Zhao and Juan Liu Central University of Finance and Economics School of Social Development, Beijing, China *Corresponding author: Jie Zhang, Central University of Finance and Economics School of Social Development, Beijing, China, Tel: 716-878-6425; E-mail: [email protected] Rec Date: Oct 07, 2017; Acc Date: Oct 18, 2017; Pub Date: Oct 20, 2017 Copyright: © 2017 Zhang J, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Although there has been an increase in China’s religious population in the past few decades, less than 15% of Chinese claim to belong to a religious group. In such a context, the association between religion or religiosity and mental health may be insignificant or even negative. Data from a 5-year panel study of college students (N=5,860) were used to examine the predictors for religiosity among Chinese college students and religion’s effect on their mental health outcomes. The current study found that ethnic minority students, those with siblings, and those who are non–Communist Party members have a higher proportion than other groups among religious believers. While religious believers tended to have higher self-esteem and social support than non-believers, they were more likely to feel depressed and think about suicide. Keywords: Religion; College students; Depression; Social support; to better understand the characteristics of those college students who Suicidal ideation are religious, as well as the mechanisms behind this phenomenon. Western studies have indicated that religious involvement and Introduction spirituality are positively associated with mental health [7], but Religion, an institutionalized belief in a supernatural being, is not conflicting findings have also been documented. For example, in a popular in China compared with many other societies around the recent study on British households, researchers found that people who world. The word “religion,” essentially a Western concept, was first have a spiritual understanding of life in the absence of a religious introduced to China in 1890 [1]. Although there has been an increase framework are vulnerable to mental disorders [8]. This is an in the religious population of China in the past few decades following illustration of the different roles played by religious involvement and the economic reform and open door policy of the 1980s, only a spirituality. The effect of religious belief and spirituality on Chinese relatively small percentage of the population (less than 15%) claim to mental health is more complicated than might be expected. Generally, be religious believers [2]. In this context, religious belief is considered religion is a protective mental health factor in Western and many deviant. The current study aims to: (1) Identify predictors of religiosity Eastern nations (e.g., South Korea, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, among Chinese undergraduate students and (2) Examine religion’s Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, effect on their mental health outcomes. Serbia and some other nations covered by the World Values Surveys) [9,10]. But, in some nations, religion is often unrelated to suicide or Since the 1980s, the economic reform and open-door policy have depression, including China and Guatemala [9,10]. Nevertheless, brought Western culture and ideologies to China. At that time, essentially no rigorous work adequately explains why, in some nations Western religions, such as Christianity, began to revive in Chinese in the world, religion has a negative effect or no effect on mental societies. As of 2005, in China there were more than 85,000 places of health. worship and other sites for religious activities, about 300,000 clergy members, 74 training centers for clergy, and more than 3,000 distinct Unlike previous research in Western states, the association between religious organizations [3]. According to official statistics, there are religious belief and mental health are under studied in China. In the more than 100 million religious adherents in Mainland China [4]. existing literature, suicide ideation and depression are considered risk factors of believing in religion in China. Brown and Tierney [4] found Previous sociological studies indicate that older adults are a strong, negative relationship between religious participation and disproportionately more likely to be religious believers. However, some subjective well-being in China. Moreover, they found that male researchers have found a recent increase in the number of young, participants in religious activities had lower odds of reporting life educated believers [5]. For example, a study conducted among college satisfaction than did female participants. Another study found that, students in Beijing found that 13.4% of sampled students claimed to be among those who attempted suicide in China, those with high religious [6]. Another study conducted in Shanghai found a similar religiosity scored higher on suicide intent than the ones with a lack of percentage of college students to be religious believers, and the authors religious belief [11]. Scholars have found that culture-specific risk expected that, in the future, the proportion of students who are factors play an important role in rural suicides in China, but religious would become greater than those who are not [5]. These unfortunately, these culture-specific risk factors, especially domestic sociological studies of religion in China have concluded that religion is and religious values, have never been adequately investigated [12]. on the rise among Chinese college students. Thus, it is necessary for us Therefore, in addition to identifying the predictors of religiosity among Int J Sch Cog Psychol, an open access journal Volume 4 • Issue 4 • 1000200 ISSN: 2469-9837 Citation: Zhang J, Zhao S, Liu J (2017) Does Believing in a Religion Relate to Individuals‘ Mental Health? An Initial Study among Chinese College Students. Int J Sch Cog Psychol 4: 200. doi:10.4172/2469-9837.1000200 Page 2 of 7 Chinese undergraduate students, this paper examines how religious Independent variables beliefs may affect individuals’ mental health outcomes. We used a full-length questionnaire with a measure of religious Why is religion in China that is so different than it is in the West? belief and a number of demographic variables, such as grade, ethnicity, Durkheim argues that religion is the nature of the collective place of residence, parents’ marital status, only-child status, and consciousness, and religious beliefs and rituals maintain social political affiliation. China has 56 ethnic groups, but a majority of the existence [13]. Durkheim and his followers’ “moral community population is Han. Thus, we recoded the variable as “Han” and hypothesis” postulates that the relationship between individual level “minorities.” “Place of residence” refers to the area where a student religiosity and the mental health of religious persons depends on the comes from, either rural or urban. Responses to parents’ marital status relative size or strength of their religious or moral community. were collapsed into “first marriage” and “remarried/divorced/ According to this hypothesis, in the context of a state religion (as in widowed.” The one-child policy was put into practice in China many Muslim nations), religious individuals have their values and beginning in 1979. Only-child status could be answered either “yes” or beliefs reinforced all around them. However, if only a few persons are “no.” The Chinese Communist Party is the governing political religious, their moral community is absent or weak [14]. At the organization in China, so we used “political affiliation” to distinguish extreme, those who are religious (or in a religious minority) may be whether students were members of it. discriminated against, including being made targets of terrorist attacks. In China, religious persons are a small minority, making it unlikely Instruments that the general population shares their religious beliefs and practices. For this reason, in China the religious beliefs and practices of the small The mental health outcome variables were all measured by minority of religious persons may be, for example, subject to ridicule standardized Western-developed, double-translated, and Chinese- and even oppression, as being religious is still considered deviant. validated instruments. The Self-Esteem Scale (SES) [15] is one of the Therefore, we hypothesized that the protective influence of religion is more widely used measures of self-esteem around the world. SES was diminished or absent in China since the general population is atheist developed to measure global attitudes toward the self through five and, as such, less likely to reinforce the religious beliefs and practices of positively worded and five negatively worded items [16]. Scores range the religious minority. from 0 to 40. A higher score indicates a higher level of self-esteem. In this study, we tested the moral community hypothesis among The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Chinese college students to contribute the literature by providing [17] is a scale of depression that is popularly used in general empirical findings in a new social context. In sum, the purpose of this populations. The 20-item scale taps cognitive, affective, behavioral, and study is first to identify predictors of religiosity among Chinese college somatic symptoms associated with depression [16]. We reversed the students and, second, to examine religion’s effect on their mental health four positively worded items (4, 8, 15, and 20).
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