Survey Results

• Tiiria wrote on 2012-03-17 19:25
  (For anyone who is curious.)
  
  Christians (mostly, with a couple buddhists and a handful of "other") tend to be one to two levels happier than nonbelievers, however there are also more depressed believers. There are few depressed atheists, and the majority of the atheist population lives their life at a happiness level from a range of neutral to minorly positive. Agnostics tend to be less happy than both groups, but our sample size of agnostics was a bit small, so this data is less conclusive. However, with agnostics, there is the convincing aspect of receiving 1 (depressed) responses but not 10 (elated) responses.
  
  Here are the statistics I had gotten:
  
  
  Total responses: 102
  
  Religious Statistics:
  average- 6.77
  mode- 8
  median- 7
  standard deviation- 2.3214
  min- 1
  max- 10
  n (sample size)=44
  do not reject the null hypothesis (mu=7) - and that just means that most likely the population average is level 7
  
  Nonreligious Statistics:
  average- 5.9655
  mode- 6
  median- 6
  standard deviation- 2.216
  min- 1
  max- 10
  n=58
  do not reject the null hypothesis (mu=6) - the population average is most likely 6
  
  
  Then I broke up nonreligious data into the atheists and agnostics and found this:
  
  Agnostic Statistics:
  average- 5.4737
  mode- 6
  median- 6
  standard deviation- 2.342
  min- 1
  max- 9
  n=19
  do not reject the null hypothesis (mu=5) - the population average is most likely 5
  
  Atheist Statistics:
  average- 6.2051
  mode- 5
  median- 6
  standard deviation- 2.1421
  min- 2
  max- 10
  n=39
  do not reject the null hypothesis (mu=6) - the population average is most likely 6
  
  
  I didn't bother with the calculating the other factors (gender and age) since those categories were mostly to make sure I got a relatively representative sample anyway.
• Sumpfkraut wrote on 2012-03-17 20:27
  Awww, I hoped atheists would turn out happier. Thread certainly made promising prospects~
  
  Oh well!
• Kollin wrote on 2012-03-17 20:28
  Interesting. Not a major difference between any of them, just a small one. I would somewhat like to see the results with a larger amount of responses.
• Hannah's Lover wrote on 2012-03-17 20:58

  Quote from Kollin;810804:

  Interesting. Not a major difference between any of them, just a small one. I would somewhat like to see the results with a larger amount of responses.

  
  this as well
  I would love to see a poll like this with thousands of responses.
  
  I know for a fact my faith has made me a happier person.
  
  The fact that there are depressed people, no matter what religion, makes me a tad sad because I remember being there.
• Osayidan wrote on 2012-03-17 22:53
  It would be pretty hard to average this out.
  It might also need to split between people who grew up religious then quit, and people who have not been and then became religious.
  Likely they switched "sides" seeking improvement in their lives. For example I told my relatives to fuck off about religion when I wasn't even 10 years old because I was sicked of being forced into it, and as a result have had no respect for religion since then, but I've also been a lot happier and don't feel restricted.
• Cookieknight wrote on 2012-03-25 02:53
  Im a christian and im not deppressed at all o.o (im a happy and funny person)
• Xemnas wrote on 2012-03-25 03:39
  I'm agnostic and slightly depressed, but that's because of personal reasons.
  
  These polls will always be inaccurate if they just assume they're depressed because of their religious choices.
• Sumpfkraut wrote on 2012-03-25 16:49

  Quote from That Guy;819506:

  I'm agnostic and slightly depressed, but that's because of personal reasons.
  
  These polls will always be inaccurate if they just assume they're depressed because of their religious choices.

  
  All polls will be inaccurate/unreliable if they don't control for alternative explanations.
  
  But I guess it's okay if it's just school homework?