A Literature Review on Close Connections to Religion, Religiosity, and Human Psychology

Although many studies have been done on the Psychology of Religion, other research (Kirkpatrick & Shaver, 1992; Mak et al., 2011) has not found any link between religiosity and life satisfaction. As a result, the existence of a direct relationship between individuals' beliefs and attitudes towards religion and the satisfaction they receive from life is questioned. The effects of spirituality and religion on the emotional part is another area where results are conflicting. Some studies reporting a weak relationship between religiosity or spirituality and positive affect (Diener et al., 2011; Lun & Bond, 2013) highlighted the possible impact of the social structure provided by religious affiliation on experiencing positive affect. This was done to explain the findings of these studies. For example, some activities, such as prayer, appear to positively help in creating pleasant emotions such as gratitude (Lambert et al., 2009). In addition, recent research has shown that transcendent emotions such as curiosity, hope, love, and forgiveness play a role in mediating the link between religious practice and general happiness (Van Cappellen et al., 2016). According to the findings of these studies, religiosity plays a key role in producing happy feelings (Fredrickson, 2002). Also, Ramsay et al. (2019), another important mechanism that can explain the relationship between religiosity and well-being is emotional regulation. This mechanism involves functional modulation of emotional states in response to the demands of the environment. Individuals who practice religion often are more likely to become accustomed to the cognitive reappraisal process. This is because religion trains people to constantly reevaluate emotional events in their lives. Vishkin et al. (2016) have recently supplied evidence that these hypotheses are correct even among people of different religions (Vishkin et al., 2019). In this article, we tried to supply literature support to decide whether there is a relationship between religiosity or spirituality and positive or negative affect, and if so, what it is.