by The mental health crisis, especially among young people, has made headlines in recent years. Researchers are beginning to take note of how religious and spiritual practices are linked to better mental health.
Scholar Jonathan Haidt notes the “effectiveness of spiritual practices such as meditation, prayer, confession, and atonement rituals” and that “there is ample evidence that maintaining certain spiritual practices improves well-being,” often because these practices “decrease well-being.”[e] self-focus and selfishness, which prepare one to become absorbed in or open to something beyond the self.”
There is now widespread scientific recognition of the potential benefits of spiritual practices (even among atheist scholars such as Haidt).
Yet there is one religious practice that has not yet been studied for its connection to mental health: temple attendance for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A recently conducted comprehensive, randomized survey of Latter-day Saints found that temple attendance is positively associated with mental health. For many, it is also related to continued faith over time.
After a thirty-second summary of this temple attendance study was viewed more than 250,000 times on social media, it seemed useful to provide additional information.
Launch of a new study
In 2016, we launched the Family Foundations of Youth Development study, designed to better understand adolescent well-being and how faith develops in adolescence and young adulthood.
To date, there have been few studies of youth among Latter-day Saints, and those that do exist often include small samples of Latter-day Saints. Unfortunately, obtaining a representative sample of Latter-day Saint youth is difficult and expensive.
As a Foundations team, we decided to use our limited resources to conduct Latter-day Saint youth research in the largest and most concentrated Latter-day Saint area—Utah—and later expand to Arizona and California. While this clearly ignores the important differences among Latter-day Saints in these locations and in other parts of the U.S. and the world, this seemed the best place to begin such an investigation.
Since 2016, youth have been surveyed every two years, with the Arizona sample in 2018 and the California sample in 2020. We re-interviewed all participants in 2020, 2022, and 2024 (we’re just collecting the 2024 data). In total we had more than 2,000 young people and one of their parents with us. About half of our sample consists of Latter-day Saint youth and the other half consists of youth of other faiths or no religion.
The importance of random sampling
We worked with research firm Data Axel to obtain the sample. They collect publicly available data that provides information on more than 200 million households. We identified the areas we wanted to research and purchased a random sample of households with teenagers and recruited by letter and telephone. A person could only participate if they were randomly selected (not a “snowball sample”).
Research into temple attendance by young people
One of the things we were interested in was temple attendance: how often young people went to the temple, what predicted whether they went to the temple, and what the effect of temple attendance might be.
Temples are an important part of worship in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Temples are being built all over the world at a historic pace. Beginning the year Latter-day Saints turn 12, they may enter the temple to participate in certain ordinances.
For analyzes of temple attendance among youth in this research report, we used the samples from Utah and Arizona. Because we only had two waves of data on California, there would have been too much missing data to make an accurate assessment. However, with our 2024 data collection, we will soon include California.
What have we found?
The first is that about 90% of twelve- and fourteen-year-olds go to the temple at least a few times a year, while only about 10% do not go at all. Of the twelve-year-olds, 61% went at least once a month. However, this dropped dramatically at age 18. Thirty-two percent of 18-year-olds had not been to the temple in the past year, and only about 28% went at least once a month.
What influences what?
We also examined whether there were aspects of religiosity (family prayer, personal prayer, scripture study, belief in the Restoration, and so on) that were associated with temple attendance from ages twelve to eighteen.
However, when we look at all this, the question arises: what causes what? For example, do religious beliefs and practices lead to more temple attendance, or do temple attendance lead to more religious beliefs and practices?
This is the eternal ‘chicken and egg’ problem with this type of research. Short of an experiment (which is impractical in this kind of research), the best we can do is follow people over time and see what comes before. This is what we call establishing ‘temporal order’, and it provides some evidence for causality.
The impact of prayer and scriptures
Thus, in our “chicken and egg” analyzes we found evidence that family prayer was strengthened throughout adolescence, and that this was also strengthened by temple attendance. It seems that the families who pray together also help their children go to the temple, and that temple attendance in turn seems to strengthen their family prayers.
For fourteen- and sixteen-year-olds, their scripture study was related to increased temple attendance two years later. In other words, the more they read the scriptures, the more likely they are to attend the temple over time. However, there was little evidence that temple attendance increased scripture study.
Nurturing a lasting commitment to faith
We also examined whether temple-going children were less likely to leave church at some point during their adolescence. Our analyzes indeed found a connection.
Of children who never attended the temple in 2018, an estimated 33% reported that they were disaffiliated by 2022 (i.e., they chose to be Latter-day Saints in 2018, but then chose them that they were not Latter-day Saints). Saint’s Day in 2022).
However, of those who visited the temple once a month in 2018, only 12% were estimated to have withdrawn by 2022.
Additional analysis shows that one reason why temple attendance predicted the out-of-body experience is that temple attendance was associated with increased belief in the Restoration, which included the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and President Russell M. Nelson as prophet.
Promoting deeper emotional resilience
Finally, we looked at the relationship between temple attendance and mental health. At ages 12, 14, 16, and 18, temple attendance was related to less depression, and at age 18 it was related to less anxiety. But what about the ‘chicken and egg’ question? Could temple attendance predict better mental health, but could poorer mental health also predict less temple attendance?
From our analyses, we found that depression at age 14 was associated with less temple attendance at age 16. But more temple attendance at age 16 was linked to less depression at age 18. It may be that mental health problems affect young people at a younger age. to avoid temple visits. In old age, temple attendance may have a beneficial effect on mental health.
It is not surprising that temple attendance would have a positive impact on mental health. For decades, the majority of research has shown that religion is linked to better mental health. It is therefore no surprise that temple attendance is linked to better mental health.
Important qualifications
It is critical that we understand that this study is about averages. Although those who attend the temple are more likely to become less depressed over time, we cannot definitively determine causality and there are likely individuals for whom temple attendance has a different relationship with depression. For example, there may be people who experience difficulties in their temple worship and struggle to experience the positive effects described here.
We caution against those who interpret this to suggest that temple attendance alone can somehow cure their own or a loved one’s depression. The problem with that is that if someone doesn’t notice their depression being lifted in the same way, they might think, “What’s wrong with me?” and fall into an even deeper depression.
As with all other mental health interventions (exercise, good sleep, healthy eating, therapy, medications, etc.) we should not: 1) think they are a miracle cure, 2) take them to extremes, or 3) Assuming everyone will be affected the same way.
There are also people who experience scrupulosity (a category of OCD that focuses on religious behavior) and might interpret this research to mean that if they go to temple obsessively, their mental health will improve. If we use the temple only as a tool to improve our spiritual health, we are likely to be disappointed and miss the central purposes of the temple: to gather Israel on both sides of the veil and worship the Lord.
Better mental health would simply be an outgrowth of these central goals. During temple worship we are reminded of our covenants and can be filled with gratitude for them and determination to keep them. As President Nelson said in April 2024, “The temple is the gateway to the greatest blessings God has in store for each of us.”
Scholarships that support the sacred
The fact that research shows that temple attendance is linked to better mental health is not surprising. While we recognize individual differences, we should not be shy about recognizing the positive effects that most people experience. Parents and leaders would do well to emphasize temple attendance broadly, while individually ministering to those who are struggling.
Justin Dyer is a professor of religious education at Brigham Young University and a fellow at the BYU Wheatley Institute. His current research focus is on the relationship between religion and mental health.
Sam Hardy is a professor of psychology at Brigham Young University. He is a developmental psychologist whose research focuses on religious development during adolescence and adulthood.
Michael A. Goodman is Professor of Religion at Brigham Young University and Associate Publications Director for the Religious Studies Center. His research focus is on the well-being of adolescents and young adults, with a special emphasis on suicidality.
