I appreciate the fact that he mentions the extrinsically religious.  About halfway through the piece, I was wondering whether they addressed that or not.

As I read the article, I kept asking myself what seemed like an obvious question:  "Is self restraint necessarily a good quality?"  I see a lot of people who miss out on life because they're too restrained.  How much better would some people's lives be if they paid a little less attention to staying restrained and just did things that would make them happy.  I'm reminded of people who die with tons of money in the bank because they saved every penny they made and never went on a frivolous vacation.

Another thing that comes to mind is that the religious are far more likely to score high on the RWA scale (Right Wing Authoritarian) than the non-religious.  Authoritarian Followers are much more likely to do a thing "because it's supposed to be that way" than anti-authoritarians.  The very makeup of their personality suggests that they would appear more methodical and "tempered" than others.  I guess I'm saying that I can think of a reasonable hypothesis to explain why the self-controlled tend to be religious, rather than the religious tending to be self-controlled.

All in all, I think the findings are probably relatively accurate, but I don't like the way it's presented.  It seems to be tooting the horn of religion as having some societal benefit, and I'll bet dimes to dollars that if I read the full study, I'd find no such implications.

 The only really clear personality trait I've ever seen linked to religiosity is authoritarianism.  Like I said, I can see a possible correlation between authoritarianism and thriftiness or self control, but I'd sure like to see some very hard data before I was ready to commit to it.

The other thing I'm anxious to see is whether this team does follow up studies on non-religious disciplines that require the same kinds of devotion.  Sports teams come to mind, as do political action groups, environmental activist groups, and a few others.  I suspect that any kind of organization that requires rigorous devotion to a cause either inspires the same kind of mentality or draws people of that mentality in.

Put another way, I seriously doubt religion is the only place where we can witness this phenomenon.

 If you read my original answer, you'll see that I agree with you.  I doubt the author of the study was trying to say this.  I felt like the author of the news article was skirting around it... saying it without sounding like he was saying it.

Could be my bias.

The author of the news article appeared to be atheist.  I know nothing of the study author.

It's possible, though after re-reading the article several times on several days, I'm pretty sure it's going out of its way to accomodate religion.

 Pineapple, have you noticed that I have used the words "study" and "article" throughout this thread?  Go back and reread them and you will see that I have a firm grasp on what you've just said.

 {EDIT: To clarify, go back and see that I have not accused the article author of being theist.  I have accused him of pandering to theists.}

How is it pandering exactly? It's not like he's saying this can only come from religion. If the study find high self-control among the religious, how is it pandering to report it?

He even said it didn't have to come from religion at the end of the article.

Video of Dr. McCullough discussing the study

Bookmarked for reading after work.  Thanks for doing my websearching for me.  I'm going to read the full study, then I'm going to read that article one more time.  Shame on me for making a big deal of something I wasn't prepared to talk about.

 the reason that studies such as this are utterly meaningless is that any type of program which concentrates on focus/discipline can produce these results. religion, meditation, a gym membership, martial arts, military service, even credit counseling can all produce mediocre to drastic changes in an individual's level of self-control and sense of responsiblility as well as better personal organization and life management, and achieving these things generally leads to happiness. even things as simple as aging and maturing, or finding the right person and settling into a productive long-term relationship, can do wonders for the ADD slacker in all of us.

religion is just one of thousands of ways to improve focus and discipline through self imposed guidelines and restrictions.

for me personally, age and maturity have led to a ridiculously happy marriage and a meaningful & satisfying career. and those things, in turn, have helped make me a better person all around.