All for one or one for all?: a cross-national assessment of religious participation, pluralism, and life satisfaction

In this paper I examine the moderating effect of religious pluralism on the relationship between religious participation and life satisfaction. My analysis makes use of Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) and data from the World Values Survey (WVS) to examine the consequences that national religious environments impinge upon individual religious practitioners. Using Wendy Griswolds Cultural Diamond as a theoretical framework, I develop a model of religious pluralism as a cultural object and test the effect that religious pluralism has on life satisfaction across divergent social and cultural contexts. The results of my analysis provide some surprising implications for future studies on religious participation and life satisfaction. The implications of my findings for the sociology of religion and life satisfaction literature are discussed.