Implicit religion and psychological wellbeing : a study among adolescents without formal religious affiliation or practice

This study examines Bailey’s notion of the persistence of implicit religion among a sample of 8,619 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 15 years in England and Wales who have no formal religious affiliation or practice. Implicit religion is operationalised as attachment to traditional Christian rites of passage. Young people who remain attached to these aspects of implicit religion display higher levels of psychological wellbeing, suggesting that implicit religion serves similar psychological functions to explicit religion