Abstract
Overall, religious individuals are more likely to have a positive life view, and are less likely to suffer from depressive symptoms. Given the high prevalence of depressive symptoms among older adults, it is important to identify possible protective factors. Thus, the current study examines the effect of age on the relation between religiosity and depressive symptoms.
The sample (N = 316) was recruited using MTURK. Measures included age, the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CESD), and the Stearns-McKinney Assessment of Religious Traits (SMART). A large variance of ages was sought and ranged from 19 to 67. As expected, we found that the older adults aged 50 and older (M = 230.35, SD = 106.97) were more religious than younger adults aged 18–30 (M = 230.35, SD = 106.97, t (1,437) = -6.07, p < .001). Additionally, younger adults (M = 18.40, SD = 13.72) reported more depressive symptoms than the older adults (M = 9.43, SD = 10.45, t (1, 67.975) = 3.16, p = .002).
Moderation analyses were conducted using SPSS’ Process macro on the entire data set. The interaction between religiosity and age just missed significance in predicting depressive symptoms, t (1, 315) = -1.74, p = .08. There was not a significant relation of religiosity on depressive symptoms for those one or more standard deviations below the mean age (t = 0.26, p = .80), whereas there was a significant relation for those one standard deviation above the mean (t = -2.40, p = .02). Implications, future directions, and limitations are discussed.