In comparatively religious counties religious individuals (i.e., persons buried in graves with religious imagery) lived longer than non-religious individuals did; no such an effect in comparatively secular counties

What the dead tell us about the living: Regionally varying associations between religiosity and longevity based on gravestone inscriptions. Tobias Ebert, Jochen E Gebauer, Jildou Talman, P. Jason Rentrow. 51. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Psychologie, Frankfurt, Sep 2018, https://osf.io/sk4uj/

Abstract: A large array of psychological research shows that religiosity can be a valuable source of health benefits and may even prolong the life. However, it is still unclear whether this relationship is universal or specific to contexts where religiosity is part of the normative lifestyle. We argue that, before reaching a conclusion, it is important to acknowledge two important limitations of existing research. Specifically, previous research a) solely relied on self-report survey information to measure an individual’s religiosity and b) mainly compared nations, while almost fully neglecting intranational variation. We suggest an innovative approach that employs an alternative, arguably more objective measure of religiosity and a very fine-grained resolution of the socio- cultural context. Specifically, we operationalize individuals’ religiosity and longevity by the inscriptions and imagery on their gravestone. To this end, we used an online database to draw a sample of 1,600 graves from 16 counties in the USA and coded the appearance of each gravestone. We find that in comparatively religious counties religious individuals (i.e., persons buried in graves with religious imagery) lived longer than non-religious individuals did. Speaking in favor of a culturally specific relationship, we do not find such an effect in comparatively secular counties. Finally, we also discuss the potentials and limitations of gravestone data as an unused source to inform psychological research in general.