Temple Attendance and Youth Mental Health

[Nofear]

Mental health for youth isn't heading in a great direction (https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/mental-health/mental-health-numbers.html).

A recent BYU study suggests that temple attendance and mental health are positively correlated. https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2024/10/28/youth-mental-health-improved-temple-attendance-byu-research-podcast-justin-dyer/

 

[Calm]

5 minutes ago, Nofear said:

Mental health for youth isn't heading in a great direction (https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/mental-health/mental-health-numbers.html).

A recent BYU study suggests that temple attendance and mental health are positively correlated. https://www.thechurchnews.com/living-faith/2024/10/28/youth-mental-health-improved-temple-attendance-byu-research-podcast-justin-dyer/

 

Religious behaviour and mental health are usually positively coordinated (suggested reasons are a stronger support system and greater avoidance of harmful substances), so this is not surprising to me.

Ha!  My former bishop doing the work as I suspected.  It’s fun to talk research with him.  I need to make more opportunities to do so.

Edited October 29 by Calm

[Calm]

This is shocking though…

Quote

Dyer said other researchers, like Tyler VanderWeele at Harvard, have estimated that nearly 40% of the increase in the suicide rate could be attributed to the decrease in church attendance.

Quote

But, Dyer warned against viewing temple worship as a box to check in order to cure mental illness.

“What we’re finding is … there are some wonderful things that may be an outcome of temple attendance, but it’s certainly not going to be the outcome for every single person,” Dyer said.

He related the mental health benefit to that gained from exercise.

“Exercise is really good for mental health, but if somebody says, ‘I’m going to exercise, and my depression is going to disappear,’ certainly exercising will be a good thing for that individual, on a lot of levels, but not necessarily … going to automatically make the depression disappear.”

 

Edited October 29 by Calm

[Calm]

Here’s the research for those who want to skip the commentary…

https://foundations.byu.edu/RR20-01-TempleAttendance

[Emily]

There is always a tendency to confuse correlation with causation in a lot of this kind of research. Do people who attend the temple have less depression? Or are you more likely to attend the temple if you aren't depressed?

Activity in general in the LDS church is strongly linked to better mental health. I stress activity, because studies like the one linked below suggest that identifying as a member, but being inactive is correlated with higher rates of depression than not being a member at all.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2673327/

But again, did the members stop being involved in church activities because they were depressed? Or did they get depressed because they stopped being involved in church activities?

I suspect the real takeaway is that being "neither hot nor cold" doesn't work when it comes to the gospel. If you are going to be in, then you need to be all in, even if you don't particularly feel like it lately. People who aren't particularly anxious to be engaged most likely are just going to end up feeling anxious. 

[Dario_M]

That doesn't supprise me. I think that the church ask to much from all those teenagers who are getting forced to go on a mission far from home. To much pressure. And yeah...then the result is stress. And to much stress causes mental health problems. 🤷‍♀️

Edited October 29 by Dario_M

[Emily]

20 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

That doesn't supprise me. I think that the church ask to much from all those teenagers who are getting forced to go on a mission far from home. To much pressure. And yeah...then the result is stress. And to much stress causes mental health problems. 🤷‍♀️

Only if they don't go. 

[Dario_M]

42 minutes ago, Emily said:

Only if they don't go. 

If they don't go? What do you mean? 🤔

Edited October 29 by Dario_M

[Emily]

4 hours ago, Dario_M said:

If they don't go? What do you mean? 🤔

The research so far appears to indicate that mental health is good when youth answer the call for service. So if they go on a mission, theoretically it would have a positive effect on their mental health.

The chances of being stressed out and the stress leading to depression would only increase, (theoretically, based on previous studies) if they choose not to go. 

Obviously, it's only theoretical until actual research specifically targeting missionary mental health has been done. 

It's been a real blessing that service mission opportunities have extended so much in the last ten years.  Youth that formerly couldn't go on a proselytizing mission rarely have to settle for "I would have, if I could have" situations anymore. They seem to be able to match a mission to pretty much anyone that wants to go now. 

[The Nehor]

Okay, I just read the study and the Church News article doesn’t really match what the research report says. There are some correlations that rise to the level of significance between depression and later lower temple attendance and temple attendance leading to decrease depression but the significance isn’t that high. What the study does show is that parental and family religiosity is correlated with higher temple attendance when younger which makes sense since you need family or church support to get to the temple when younger but at higher ages it is more tied to private religiosity.

The study suggests that depression impacts attendance more than attendance impacts depression.

They have a ‘40% of the increase in suicides can possibly be attributed to decreased religious attendance’ claim but that links to a study that only cites another study for that and the second study is behind a paywall.

This looks like the standard Science News Cycle thing.

[Dario_M]

3 hours ago, Emily said:

The research so far appears to indicate that mental health is good when youth answer the call for service. So if they go on a mission, theoretically it would have a positive effect on their mental health.

I'm not so sure about those studies. But i do know that going on a mission is hard work. And hard work means pressure. And pressure means stress. And stress means mental healt problems. 

3 hours ago, Emily said:

The chances of being stressed out and the stress leading to depression would only increase, (theoretically, based on previous studies) if they choose not to go. 

Honestly.. .i don't really believe that at all. Where have you read those studies if i may be so free to ask? 

3 hours ago, Emily said:

Obviously, it's only theoretical until actual research specifically targeting missionary mental health has been done. 

Then those studies are not trusworthy. 

3 hours ago, Emily said:

It's been a real blessing that service mission opportunities have extended so much in the last ten years.  Youth that formerly couldn't go on a proselytizing mission rarely have to settle for "I would have, if I could have" situations anymore. They seem to be able to match a mission to pretty much anyone that wants to go now. 

It depends on the person as well. I also believe that some people will do really good on a mission. But some won't. I have hearth stories of ex missionaries who really hated every moment of it. 

[Senator]

18 hours ago, Emily said:

 

 

I suspect the real takeaway is that being "neither hot nor cold" doesn't work when it comes to the gospel. If you are going to be in, then you need to be all in, even if you don't particularly feel like it lately. People who aren't particularly anxious to be engaged most likely are just going to end up feeling anxious.

Ughh!

Edited October 30 by Senator

[The Nehor]

Also these categories in this study are really odd. They are asking the Youth how often they attend the temple (presumably to do baptisms). The category of “about once a week” has about 6% of the youth across all categories. How does that even work? Wards don’t have youth temple nights more than a few times a year in general. Really dedicated genealogists in the family who take them regularly?

Over 50% of the youth at age 12 said they were going to the temple “about once a month” or more. That number rapidly falls off. Still 32% of 18 year olds claim they are going “once a month” or more. Is this some Utah cultural thing?

What is going on in this study?

[Rain]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Also these categories in this study are really odd. They are asking the Youth how often they attend the temple (presumably to do baptisms). The category of “about once a week” has about 6% of the youth across all categories. How does that even work? Wards don’t have youth temple nights more than a few times a year in general. Really dedicated genealogists in the family who take them regularly?

Over 50% of the youth at age 12 said they were going to the temple “about once a month” or more. That number rapidly falls off. Still 32% of 18 year olds claim they are going “once a month” or more. Is this some Utah cultural thing?

What is going on in this study?

My husband and children used to go once a week for a couple of years.  I know bishops or youth leaders who have an open invitation to their youth to go each week with them. It's not unusual to go that often if you live close to a temple.    

By the way, at one time the slowest night for baptisms at Jordan River temple was Halloween (at least as of 10 years ago when we lived there)

[The Nehor]

7 hours ago, Rain said:

My husband and children used to go once a week for a couple of years.  I know bishops or youth leaders who have an open invitation to their youth to go each week with them. It's not unusual to go that often if you live close to a temple.    

By the way, at one time the slowest night for baptisms at Jordan River temple was Halloween (at least as of 10 years ago when we lived there)

Weird, where I am you have to fight tooth and nail to get times to go. Just going every week would be next to impossible.

[Rain]

4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Weird, where I am you have to fight tooth and nail to get times to go. Just going every week would be next to impossible.

Afternoons, after school were like that. They went before school and that was much easier (at least as far as times being available.

Edited October 31 by Rain

[longview]

14 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Also these categories in this study are really odd. They are asking the Youth how often they attend the temple (presumably to do baptisms). The category of “about once a week” has about 6% of the youth across all categories. How does that even work? Wards don’t have youth temple nights more than a few times a year in general. Really dedicated genealogists in the family who take them regularly?

I volunteer to regular baptistry shifts in the Denver temple. There is a ward that has consistently reserved their 4 pm appointment EVERY Wednesday (if temple is not closed) for several years. Their youth number around 20 young people and the adults around 5 to 8. They are wonderful and always have family names to bring. Sometimes they reserve/use the next hour 5 pm.

The youth do NOT have to depend on youth nights. Very frequently I see single families bringing their children.