Religion and psychological well-being and distress in Israeli Jews: findings from the Gallup World Poll.

BACKGROUND This study investigates religious predictors of psychological well-being and psychological distress in a five-year national probability sample of Israeli Jews (N = 4,073). Data were taken from the 2006-2010 annual surveys of Israel as a part of the multinational Gallup World Poll. METHODS Analyses identified religious predictors of five-item scales of well-being and distress, adjusting for effects of several covariates, including health satisfaction. Additional analyses examined differences in religion, well-being and distress, and their interrelationships by categories of Jewish religious identity and observance (hiloni, masorti, dati, and haredi). RESULTS Levels of religiousness and of well-being increase as one moves "rightward" across Jewish observance. Self-ratings of importance of religion and religious attendance are significantly associated with well-being, overall, and a religious harmony scale is associated with both wellbeing (positively) and distress (inversely), and with these measures' respective items, overall and across Jewish observance. CONCLUSIONS Religious indicators are significant predictors of both psychological well-being and psychological distress in Israeli Jews, regardless of Jewish religious observance.