Religiousness-happiness links in Türkiye and Jordan: the role of gratitude and envy

Happiness is central to psychological well-being, yet less is known about the emotional processes that may help account for its association with religiousness in Muslim populations. The present study examined whether gratitude and two forms of envy (malicious and benign) were statistically associated with the relationship between religiousness and happiness among Muslim adults in Türkiye and Jordan. Participants were 812 Muslim adults who completed validated measures of religiousness, happiness, gratitude, and benign and malicious envy. Path analyses showed that religiousness was positively associated with happiness. In addition, higher religiousness was associated with greater gratitude and lower malicious envy, both of which were in turn associated with higher happiness. Benign envy was not significantly associated with either religiousness or happiness and did not show a significant indirect association. These findings extend existing literature by highlighting social-moral emotions as possible correlates of the religion-happiness association in Muslim-majority contexts. More specifically, the findings suggest that religiousness may be linked to greater happiness partly through emotional tendencies characterized by appreciation, contentment, and reduced hostile social comparison. At the same time, because the data are cross-sectional, the findings should be interpreted as reflecting statistical indirect associations rather than causal or temporal mechanisms. Future longitudinal and experimental research is needed to clarify the directionality of these relationships and examine whether gratitude and malicious envy prospectively account for changes in happiness over time.