Religious People Have More Self-Control?

A recent study done by professor of Psychology Michael McCullough of the University of Miami finds that religious people have more self-control than do less religious people...at least according to his findings. He claims that his findings "imply" that religious people may be "better at pursuing and achieving long-term goals that are important to them and their religious groups." Now this is the part I find interesting. Professor McCullough claims that this "might help to explain why religious people tend to have lower rates of substance abuse, better school achievement, less delinquency, better health behaviors, less depression and longer lives."

First of all...I'm curious as to where he found his data in regards to religious belief and desirable behavior? As far as I know, U.S. federal crime statistics show this is just not the case. The next question I have is...does "less religious" include the category of non-believer? Nowhere was this mentioned in the article.

I think it would be quite interesting to know a little about professor McCullough's background, as well as the sources that were used to compare the results of his studies. As one person commented on the article..."Methinks there may be a bias here." Methinks he is correct.