Research into the impact of faith on one's personality fascinates the media but is not always constructive
By Gauthier Vaillant | France
Many scientific studies look at religious practice to study its links to behavior or health. Their sometimes-unexpected conclusions are often widely reported in the press, rather surprising at a time of secularization.
Have you ever wondered, for example, if religious belief causes depressive symptoms in the elderly? The question is blunt and the answer, you should know, is no.
At least that is what Belgian researchers from the Catholic University of Louvain have concluded after examining the subject. Their analysis, published at the end of July, has added to the list of behavioral studies on religion that regularly fascinate the media as much as they surprise them with their conclusions.
They sometimes give religions good press, such as this study by the Washington-based Pew Research Center, which, in early 2019, leaned toward concluding that religion makes people happier.
Or like the one conducted in 2018 by researchers at the University of Ohio, who claimed that believers lived on average four years longer than atheists and agnostics.
Sometimes-hasty generalizations
Others are much less flattering. Like one 2012 Californian study, the authors of which stated that atheists were more inclined to compassion than believers.
Or the one in 2015, published in the very serious American journal Current Biology, which concluded that children raised in religion were less generous than others.
This is something to offend some believers, especially when the media does not hesitate to generalize the results of these experiences in a sensational way.
The last one mentioned, for example, gave rise, on the L'Express website, to this very self-assured title: "No, raising your child in religion will not make him more altruistic."
Other studies open up to vast areas of perplexity.
In the summer of 2018, researchers at the University of Utah, after studying about 20 faithful Mormons, came to this conclusion: prayer activates the same areas of the brain as sex, drugs and other addictions.
Why so many studies try to quantify, quantify, objectify a spiritual experience?
"The study of the links between religions and value systems is a legitimate question from the point of view of the social sciences," defends sociologist Pierre Bréchon.
"It is also legitimate from the point of view of faith: after all, Catholicism is supposed to be seen in the lives of the faithful!"
The sociologist also notes that the media coverage of these studies masks the fact that in reality, there are fewer studies on religion today than before, at least in France. In fact none of the surveys mentioned above come from French researchers, and most come from the U.S.
"In political polls, we no longer even ask about the religious affiliation of those questioned, whereas before it was systematic," says Bréchon. "Secularization is a major trend, which particularly affects researchers."
An ideological confrontation
As for the sometimes provocative nature of the questions studied or the conclusions, Bréchon does not hesitate to see in it the mark of an ideological confrontation between promoters of atheism and defenders of religion.
"We're going to study this topic from both sides to try to show who's the most altruistic, the most virtuous," he adds.
Father Nicolas de Brémond d'Ars, a priest and sociologist, confirms: "This type of study is a phenomenon that has its roots in the conflict between modernity and religion, because modernity is scientific and rational."
It is therefore not surprising that the modern world is seeking to make spirituality scientific and rational. For religions, on the other hand, it is a double-edged sword.
"We can think that this offers a serious picture of religion," says the priest, "but it can also turn against it. This is the same problem as that posed by historical-critical works on the Bible."
As for the media interest that these studies continue to generate, the sociologist priest sees them as a sign of the progress of secularization.
"Many observe that never before has so much been said about religion," he said. "In my opinion, the reason we talk about it is because its influence is less. If we allow ourselves to do these studies, and to relay them with a critical tone, it is because the religious question arouses less passion."
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