Coral Gables, FL, USA. Self-control is critical for success in life and religious people have more self-control than do their less religious counterparts.

New findings imply that religious people may be better at pursuing and achieving long-term goals that are important to them and their religious groups. This, in turn, helps explain why religious people tend to have lower rates of substance abuse, better school achievement, less delinquency, better health behaviors, less depression, and longer lives.


Michael McCullough, professor of Psychology at the University of Miami (UM), evaluated 8 decades worth of research on religion, which has been conducted in diverse samples of people from around the world. He found persuasive evidence that religious beliefs and religious behaviors are capable of encouraging people to exercise self-control and to more effectively regulate their emotions and behaviors, so that they can pursue valued goals.

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Video courtesy of the University of Miami (UM).
Time: 00:06:51.

Religion and Self Control

Michael McCollough discusses the relationship of religion in the exercise of self-control (self-regulation) and attainment of long-term goals. McCullough finds a strong correlation, explaining that religious people may have a set of unique resources at their disposal.McCullough reviewed research from a variety of domains within the social sciences, including neuroscience, economics, psychology, and sociology to better understand the interrelationships of religion and self-control. He asked "how the same social force that motivates acts of charity and generosity can also motivate people to strap bomb belts around their waists and then blow themselves up in crowded city buses."

The research examined religion in a broader social context: "By thinking of religion as a social force that provides people with resources for controlling their impulses (including the impulse for self-preservation, in some cases) in the service of higher goals, religion can motivate people to do just about anything."

"The importance of self-control and self-regulation for understanding human behavior are well known to social scientists, but the possibility that the links of religiosity to self-control might explain the links of religiosity to health and behavior has not received much explicit attention," said McCullough.

"We hope our paper will correct this oversight in the scientific literature." The paper summarizes the results of their review of the existing science and appears in the Psychological Bulletin.

McCullough says people with genuine religious convictions are self-controlled because their religious ideals are absorbed into their own values systems. An aura of sacredness surounds their personal goals. “Sacred values come prefabricated for religious believers,” according to McCullough.

“The belief that God has preferences for how you behave and the goals you set for yourself has to be the granddaddy of all psychological devices for encouraging people to follow through with their goals. That may help to explain why belief in God has been so persistent through the ages.”

Among the most interesting conclusions were the following:

• Religious rituals such as prayer and meditation affect the parts of the human brain that are most important for self-regulation and self-control;
  
  
• When people view their goals as "sacred," they put more energy and effort into pursuing those goals, and therefore, are probably more effective at attaining them;
  
  
• Religious lifestyles may contribute to self-control by providing people with clear standards for their behavior, by causing people to monitor their own behavior more closely, and by giving people the sense that God is watching their behavior;
  
  
• The fact that religious people tend to be higher in self-control helps explain why religious people are less likely to misuse drugs and alcohol and experience problems with crime and delinquency.

Among the study's more practical implications is that religious people may have at their disposal a set of unique psychological resources for adhering to their New Year's Resolutions in the year to come.

A secular version of the religious strategy might work for nonbelievers. “People can have sacred values that aren’t religious values,” McCullough said. “Self-reliance might be a sacred value to you that’s relevant to saving money. Concern for others might be a sacred value that’s relevant to taking time to do volunteer work. You can spend time thinking about what values are sacred to you and making New Year’s resolutions that are consistent with them.”

Of course, it requires some self-control to carry out that exercise — and maybe more effort than it takes to go to church.

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