Unravelling ageing: Taking a social identity approach to understanding religion and health across the life-course

Do religion and spirituality play a part in ageing well? Might religious identity help us cope with age-related stressors or illness? How do we – or how do most people – define healthy ageing? These questions give rise to many answers. Some have characterized ageing in purely biological terms as a disease itself, thereby launching efforts to treat it. However, this discourse fails to consider the diverse experiences of ageing based on an array of social factors, including religious (or non-religious) belief and identity. Taking an intersectional approach, I argue that ageing is better conceptualized as an identity transition and provide evidence that the decussate role of religious identity may be particularly important in navigating various life stages and stressors associated with ageing, including retirement, caregiving, and illness. I end with an acknowledgement that although older adults have historically been more religious compared with their younger counterparts, preliminary findings suggest that this too may be changing with increasing trends of secularization globally, with potential implications for health and well-being for all of us. ‘Unravelling ageing’ is therefore a useful metaphor in helping us to challenge some of our pre-existing assumptions about what it means to age well, and to critically explore how the uniqueness of social identities related to religion and spirituality may intersect with healthy ageing in diverse contexts and across identity transitions. This article is the text that accompanied a keynote address given at the International Association for the Psychology of Religion meeting in 2025 in Birmingham, England.

• Publication year

  2026

• Venue

  Archive for the Psychology of Religion/ Archiv für Religionspsychologie

• Publication date

  2026-01-14

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1177/00846724251408345
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• "What does gerotranscendence mean to you?" Older adults' lay perspectives on the theory.

  2025cited by this paper
• Religion as a social determinant of health in old age?

  2024cited by this paper
• Religious engagement and antibody response to the COVID-19 vaccine.

  2024cited by this paper
• Medicine for the soul: (Non)religious identity, coping, and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic

  2024cited by this paper
• Believing in science: Linking religious beliefs and identity with vaccination intentions and trust in science during the COVID-19 pandemic

  2023cited by this paper
• Supporting the spirituality of older people living with dementia in nursing care: A hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry into older people's and their family members' experiences

  2022cited by this paper
• Epigenetic regulation of aging: implications for interventions of aging and diseases

  2022cited by this paper
• The Effectiveness of Reminiscence Therapy on Alleviating Depressive Symptoms in Older Adults: A Systematic Review

  2021cited by this paper
• Telomere Length as a Marker of Biological Age: State-of-the-Art, Open Issues, and Future Perspectives

  2021cited by this paper
• Is Secularization an Age-Related Process?

  2021cited by this paper
• They’re (not) playing our song: (Ir)religious identity moderates the effects of listening to religious music on memory, self‐esteem, and mood

  2021cited by this paper
• Concealment of nonreligious identity: Exploring social identity threat among atheists and other nonreligious individuals

  2020cited by this paper
• Identity in a Secular Age

  2020cited by this paper
• Social Connection in Long-Term Care Homes: A Scoping Review of Published Research on the Mental Health Impacts and Potential Strategies During COVID-19

  2020cited by this paper
• A Leak in the Academic Pipeline: Identity and Health Among Postdoctoral Women

  2019cited by this paper
• We Are Caregivers: Social Identity Is Associated with Lower Perceived Stress among Rural Informal Caregivers

  2018cited by this paper
• Social cure, what social cure? The propensity to underestimate the importance of social factors for health.

  2018cited by this paper
• Music therapy, spirituality and transcendence

  2018cited by this paper
• The Importance of Social Groups for Retirement Adjustment: Evidence, Application, and Policy Implications of the Social Identity Model of Identity Change

  2018cited by this paper
• A Meta-Analytic Review of Social Identification and Health in Organizational Contexts

  2017cited by this paper
• Stressful life transitions and wellbeing: A comparison of the stress buffering hypothesis and the social identity model of identity change.

  2017cited by this paper
• Religion, a social determinant of mortality? A 10-year follow-up of the Health and Retirement Study

  2017cited by this paper
• Caregiver Well-Being

  2015cited by this paper
• The Healing Power of Music

  2015cited by this paper
• It is time to classify biological aging as a disease

  2015cited by this paper
• Aging, Social Developmental, and Cultural Factors in Changing Patterns of Religious Involvement Over a 32-Year Period

  2015cited by this paper
• The effectiveness of group reminiscence therapy for loneliness, anxiety and depression in older adults in long-term care: a systematic review.

  2015cited by this paper
• Religious and Ethnic Discrimination: Differential Implications for Social Support Engagement, Civic Involvement, and Political Consciousness

  2014cited by this paper
• Social identification moderates cognitive health and well-being following story- and song-based reminiscence

  2014cited by this paper
• Successful aging and its discontents: a systematic review of the social gerontology literature.

  2014cited by this paper
• The Development and Evaluation of Mutual Support Groups in Long-Term Care Homes

  2014cited by this paper
• ‘To be heard’: The social and mental health benefits of choir singing for disadvantaged adults

  2013cited by this paper
• Abide with me: religious group identification among older adults promotes health and well-being by maintaining multiple group memberships

  2013cited by this paper
• Musical training as a framework for brain plasticity: behavior, function, and structure.

  2012cited by this paper
• Coping With Identity Threat: The Role of Religious Orientation and Implications for Emotions and Action Intentions

  2011cited by this paper
• Religiosity as Identity: Toward an Understanding of Religion From a Social Identity Perspective

  2010cited by this paper
• The social treatment: the benefits of group interventions in residential care settings.

  2010cited by this paper
• A Terror Management Analysis of the Psychological Functions of Religion

  2010cited by this paper
• The Social Cure

  2009cited by this paper
• Social Identity, Health and Well-Being: An Emerging Agenda for Applied Psychology

  2009cited by this paper
• Caregiving: Predicting At-Risk Status*

  2008cited by this paper
• Religion and Science: Beyond the Epistemological Conflict Narrative

  2008cited by this paper
• The role of religious identity in the mental health of older working and retired adults

  2007cited by this paper
• Introducing the New Indices of Religious Orientation (NIRO): Conceptualization and measurement

  2007cited by this paper
• Nursing home institutionalization: a source of eustress or distress for the elderly?

  2006cited by this paper
• A Three-Factor Model of Social Identity

  2004cited by this paper
• Religion and anxiety: a critical review of the literature.

  2004cited by this paper
• Multicultural policy in Canada: A social psychological analysis.

  1984cited by this paper
• Religious Orientation and Complexity of Thought about Existential Concerns

  1983cited by this paper
• Personal religious orientation and prejudice.

  1967cited by this paper

• No citing papers are available for this paper.