Entry into the earthly Garden of Eden is only granted to a few, the rich, the beautiful, the successful. They can step through whatever doors are open to them and live a life in abundance. But how are people who cannot keep up, whose everyday life is characterized by material worries? Comparatively bad, of course. What is surprising, however, is this research finding: In rich countries, the abandoned suffer more on average than in poorer societies. This calls for an explanation, after all, most of the socially disadvantaged in rich countries are still materially better off than in economically less highly developed countries.
Psychologists around Jana Berkessel and Jochen Gebauer from the University of Mannheim offer now in the trade journal PNAS a finding, with the help of which the phenomenon can be partially interpreted. Accordingly, religiosity alleviates the pain of low socio-economic status. And because organized belief in the supernatural is waning in rich industrial societies, lower social status affects well-being there by comparison. To put it bluntly: Poverty is easier to bear when the paradise lies in the hereafter instead of earthly success fantasies.
For their study, the scientists working with Berkessel evaluated several very lush data sets. In total, information from around three million people from more than 150 countries was included in the analysis. “The richer the countries are, the wider the gap between rich and poor opens up there,” says Gebauer. This contradicts the widespread, intuitive assumption that economic development automatically increases people’s well-being. The data show that, for example, a low socio-economic status in rich, secular Norway had a comparatively heavy impact on the psyche. In the significantly poorer and more religiously influenced Jamaica, however, no comparable summary could be proven.
The psychologists focus above all on the values, norms and content of the major religions as effective factors. This is reflected in the Bible in the phrase about the camel that tends to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man finds entrance into heaven. “In many religions, wealth is downright devalued and poverty is almost made a virtue,” says Berkessel. Comparable values may help to endure the challenges of a life in scarcity.
In addition, but this is a different interpretation, religions offer a feeling of community, cohesion and an opportunity to acquire status and recognition even as a penniless believer.
So if, to endeavor old Karl Marx, religion is actually opium for the people, then many people in rich, secular societies suffer from withdrawal symptoms. So social policy could be successful if it substitutes religion with a substitute and does not rely solely on money.