Happiness, health, and religiosity: Significant relations

The aim of the present work was to test for an association between, and gender differences in, happiness, physical health, mental health, and religiosity. Four separate self-rating scales of these variables with good retest reliability were used. The sample comprised 2,210 male (n = 1,056) and female (n = 1,154) volunteer Kuwaiti undergraduates. Males had a significantly higher self-rating mean score of happiness and mental health than females, while females had a significantly higher religiosity mean score than their male counterparts. All the inter-correlations between the four self-ratings were significant and positive. They yielded one high loaded factor. Though the loadings were all high (>0.51), the ratings for happiness and mental health had the highest loadings (>0.82). Multiple regression revealed that the main predictor of happiness was mental health. Mental health accounted for 60% of the variance in predicting happiness, while religiosity accounted for around 15% of the variance in predicting happiness. However, the self-rating of physical health did not contribute significantly to the prediction of happiness. Based on the self-rating scales, the current data provide strong evidence that, among a large sample of Kuwaiti Muslim undergraduate students, religious people are happier. © 2006 Taylor & Francis.