Compassion linked to good health

A recently published study that examined the possible link between religiosity and better psychosocial health found that compassion was the active ingredient in the relationship.

Patrick Steffen, lead author of the study and assistant professor of clinical psychology at Brigham Young University, said that religious people had the best health in his study, but that when he and his colleagues controlled for compassion, the religion-health relationship vanished.

“What we’re interpreting that to mean is that religious people have better health because they’re more compassionate,” he said. The study involved 441 BYU students and individuals from the surrounding community, all of whom were Mormons.

The study is published in the December issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine.