A study on the relationship between religious life and anxiety and loneliness in secondary school students: The case of Mersin

The ultimate goal of this study is to investigate the relationship between religious life and anxiety and loneliness among secondary school students. The sample of this study consists of 431 students, 204 of whom are female and 227 are male, randomly selected among students from different high schools in Mersin. Questionnaire forms were used during the application phase. The data were collected by using Personal Information Questionnaire, Religious Life Scale, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and UCLA Loneliness Scale. The data obtained have been analyzed by SPSS 20 package program. In the meantime, the data obtained have been examined by correlation technique, t Test for independent groups, one-directional ANOVA and regression analysis. According to the research outcomes, the relationship between anxiety and religiosity is not always positive or negative. In some cases, religion reduces anxiety and in other cases it either increases anxiety or it has no effect on it. The positive or negative effect of religion on anxiety is particularly related to how an individual perceives and internalizes religion. In fact, it has been founded that religion reduces anxiety of intrinsic religious; yet, it increases anxiety level of extrinsic religious people. Similarly, when we look at the relationship between loneliness and religiosity, it appears that sometimes religion alleviates adolescent loneliness but sometimes it has no effect on their loneliness. If the factors such as adolescent's environment, culture and the way he/she perceives religion are positive, religion alleviates their loneliness; however, if these factors are negative, religion has either neutral or negative effect on their loneliness.