Sundays Well Spent: Will Shopping or Church Make Us Happier?
September 2nd, 2010
A new study uses individual surveys, church attendance records, and changes in retail hours (to include or exclude Sunday mornings) to gauge whether attending church or spending the morning shopping makes people happier. The group most affected by expanded store hours was white women, and the study found that they were significantly happier if they chose to attend church rather than ‘treat’ themselves to a morning of shopping. As with many other areas of mental health, the instant gratification of shopping feels good in the moment, but it does not feed over into our long-term psychological well-being. Attending religious services, by contrast, while not as immediately gratifying as shopping, gave people more substantial psychological and emotional benefits that lasted over time.
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Comments
ahh…attending church sure is better than shopping!
whenever I feel low I just head to the church or outdoors for a stroll and I feel its much,much better than ‘retail therapy’ that many people now use to unwind…
Jus don understand y every new study or research done gives out its reports sorted by d racial background of d people d study was done on. N v ask ourselves why we Race is still an issue in dis cosmopolitan era. D answer lies within us I guess!
Did they find that your religious beliefs mattered? Because it would have been a very quick survey if they had asked a group of atheists which they would choose.
Do what makes YOU happy and not what others tell you makes them happy.After all it need not be the same thing that satisfies you and another person.Just follow what you want without any inhibitions.
I’m an American woman and would hate to spend every Sunday in church. It has nothing to do with Sunday trading. I just don’t need an organized religion in my life when I can hold my own beliefs in my heart.
They didn’t ask anyone that wasn’t Catholic or Protestant to be part of the study. The bias was already there in the selection process. When reporting his results the good doctor should state in his comments this expressly refers to women that follow those religions rather than a generalization about ALL women. But then that doesn’t look as good in print, does it.
I bet for many of those women it’s the social side of church that makes them happier, not just the religious side. When I was a kid, my dad never let my mom go anywhere without him. She wasn’t allowed to be out of the house alone when he was at work. The only exception was church or church gatherings. He was very controlling and under it all, scared she’d meet another man and leave him. Like men don’t go to church LOL.
You won’t lead a fulfilled life if you don’t attend church. You can spend money from now until eternity and you can do it any other day of the week. That won’t feed your spirit. I feel sorry for you all. You should be respecting the Sabbath. You don’t need material possessions. Only God.
How about if I go to the store on Sunday and spend money on Christian music CD’s or DVD’s of a minister on a devotional tour talking to a stadium sized crowd of followers? Doesn’t that feed my spirit? Perhaps the churches should ban all such products then related to Christianity if they are so against material possessions and not be making money from them. It’s only a multi million dollar industry after all.
Not everyone relates religion to happiness. Just ask all the altar boys that have suffered abuse at a priest’s hands.
To say that Sunday shopping is the cause of reduced participation of women in church is, on its own, suspect at best. To then throw in that choosing not to attend was the reason for reduced happiness is even more ludicrous. What nonsense.
People have a million reasons that factor in on their happiness levels. Singling out one, like church, is dumb. The findings are strongly insinuating that if you go to church you’ll be happy. Really? That’s not much different from the diet pills that tell me how great life will be and how deliriously happy and popular I’d be if only I could lose weight. One thing isn’t the solution: it’s a combination of actions and learning about yourself that will create happiness in your life. Sometimes all you need do is DECIDE to be happy.
If the churches are so concerned about our wellbeing they should open their doors 24/7 for continuous services, not just a couple of hours one day a week. We could go anytime we wanted then at our convenience, not theirs. I’m sure with the vast number of lay preachers in this country there wouldn’t be a shortage of volunteers to man the church round the clock. Or is that too high a price to pay for women’s happiness? I wouldn’t want to interrupt their soap operas.
I haven’t been to church since I was ten apart from the occasional wedding or funeral. Am I happy about that? Sure am. I guess my church related activities affect my happiness after all LOL.
“According to Dr. Danny Cohen-Zada of BGU’s Department of Economics, “We found that there is direct evidence that religious participation has a positive causal effect on a person’s happiness. Furthermore, an important part of the decline in women’s happiness during the last three decades can be explained by decline in religious participation.”
What a leap that was! So a store opening its doors on a day normally reserved for church affects your happiness? What about choice? The women choose where to go and when. Nothing is stopping them from going to church. You don’t think that listening to men that don’t practice what they preach has something to do with their aversion?
Notice too Robyn the last line’s phrasing: “Furthermore, an important part of the decline in women’s happiness during the last three decades can be explained by decline in religious participation.”
Can be explained, he said. Not may be explained or possibly explained.
I can’t stand researchers that state as fact what’s came out of their single study as if the results are infallible. Overconfident are we, Dr. Cohen-Zada?
And this study was sponsored by which religious organization? I smell a rat.
Some women, not all, may be affected by their reduction in church going. Some. And even that’s very dubious. What about the economy, the changing face of relationships, having to work outside as well as in the home, the elderly living longer where daughters need to care for them? None of these things make a difference to women’s happiness? Please. Stop laying the blame at the retailer’s door.
Much has changed in thirty years and a woman’s life has never been so time pressured. It’s also far more acceptable to voice how you feel than keep a stiff upper lip. Depression doesn’t carry the same stigma it once did. Women will admit to not being happy more readily than before. Church may give them a little comfort, but it’s not the sole answer for everyone.
At next Sunday’s sermon be prepared to see this report being waved from pulpits instead of the Bible. You heard it here first folks!
And if you do both, go to church then go shopping (which happens–I’ve been in Walmart after church hours on an early Sunday afternoon), are you happy, unhappy or exactly the same as you were? Does picking up a pound of potatoes cancel out all the good of listening to a sermon for an hour previously? The God fearing public has a right to know.
As long as you ladies get some soap and detergent while you’re there you’ll be fine. Cleanliness is next to Godliness. ;)
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