Comparing Types of Strong Belief in Old Age

by Richard Shank

As older adults move into later stages of life, they are faced with the increased likelihood that they will experience the death of close loved ones, declines in their health, and a progressive decline in their functional capacity. Despite these potentially negative experiences, many people are capable of adjusting to them and maintain a high quality of life. A substantial body of research indicates that older adults who face these experiences increasingly turn towards religion as a source of understanding and comfort. In fact, religiosity tends to increase later in life. These trends have led researchers to focus very narrowly on the role that religion plays in the coping process related to old age. This has left a wide gap in knowledge about the psychological coping resources of older adults who do not turn to religion late in life. They believe that comparing religious and non-religious older adults will help them pinpoint how belief systems function, such as religion or atheism, as older adults face the typical changes of old age.

To explore this topic in depth, the researchers designed a qualitative-comparative study that matched two groups (Religious vs. Atheist) of older adults (60 years or older) on the nature of loss and stress they had experienced in their life. The study had three main aims: 1) to find out the extent to which people considered their beliefs about the nature of religion to be relevant in helping them cope with aging related changes in their life, 2) to assess the successes of each group’s coping methods, and 3) to ascertain whether religious coping provided a unique resource compared to non-religious forms of coping.

Participants were recruited from various religious organizations in south England, as well as from the British Humanist Association.

The research was carried out in two phases. First, each participant was engaged in one to two hour long in-depth interviews. Second, participants were enrolled in follow-up interviews and asked to complete the Royal Hospital’s Beliefs and Values Scale and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale.

The researchers found that both religious and non-religious coping was effective for the participants in their sample. In fact, there were no clear differences in how each group coped with aging or loss. The content of their beliefs may have been different; however the explanations they used provided them all with a coherent narrative for why things were happening as they were. For example, when comparing two older adults faced with the possibility of death, the researchers discovered that while the participant from their religious group turned toward prayer and religious texts for answers, their non-religious participant turned toward his favorite works of literature and poetry for words of wisdom. Both sources worked well for the purposes of each individual. Furthermore, none of their participants showed differences in their risks for anxiety or depression.

The researchers conclude that a firm atheistic belief provides as strong a psychological coping mechanism as a firm belief in religion. It appears then that the presence of a solid belief system is what is most important for coping. It is the individuals who waiver between religious and non-religious belief systems may be less able to handle bereavement, stress, and other changes related to aging.

This study has numerous limitations. The most important of which is that its small sample size makes it hard to generalize to a wider group of people. More extensive research is needed on this topic.
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