Abstract
Higher income is related to better psychological adjustment. We propose that religiosity attenuates this relation. First, in comforting the poor, religious teachings de-emphasize the importance of money, which would buffer low-income's psychological harms (religiosity as poverty buffer account). Second, religious teachings convey antiwealth norms, which would reduce income's psychological benefits (religiosity as antiwealth norms account). A study involving 187,957 respondents from 11 religiously diverse cultures showed that individual-level, as well as culture-level, religiosity weakens the relation between personal income and psychological adjustment in accordance with the religiosity as antiwealth norms account. Performance self-esteem mediated this relation. Religiosity's moderating effects were so pervasive that religious individuals in religious cultures reported better psychological adjustment when their income was low than high.
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