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 hared. 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.