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Selection Effects in Studies of Religious Influence
Abstract
Much has been made of religious influences on a variety of human behaviors and outcomes. However, some researchers choose to attribute religious influences to selection effects or underlying personality traits. They suggest scholars should pay more attention to what underlies religiosity than what effects it may have. This manuscript engages the fundamental debate about the real influence of religious participation and salience in people's lives. We consider in this study the implications of selection effects for studies of religious influences, first by examining previous research evidence, and second by our own exploration of the effects of religion on three diverse outcomes during adolescence - family relations, health, and delinquency. The evidence suggests that two common measures of religiosity are indeed subject to selection processes, but that this does not appear easily to alter or diminish their independent effects. There is also evidence for a strategic inclination to be more religious, but this too fails to mitigate religious influences. Finally, skepticism in the form of reciprocal effects appears more plausible than selection effects.
... Gender is one key determinant, with multiple studies finding that women tend to have higher religiosity and engagement compared to men (Azimi et al., 2018;Bryant, 2007;Burris et al., 2009;Jang & Franzen, 2013). Parental influences also play a role, as greater parental religiousness and mothers' education levels promote students' religious participation (Desmond et al., 2010;Franck & DeBlaere, 2014;Regnerus & Smith, 2005). ...
... Meanwhile, family endorsement and shared rituals boost youth observance (Desmond et al., 2010;Regnerus & Smith, 2005), underlining essential socio-cultural contributors. Overall, a complex interplay of demographic and behavioral elements directs university students' religious participation, warranting consideration in fostering positive campus experiences. ...
... The intricate association of family religiousness with students' participation confirms proposed models underscoring household influences in fostering youth observance (Desmond et al., 2010;Regnerus & Smith, 2005). However, comparisons to gauge precise effect sizes are limited by differences in operationalization of key variables across studies. ...
This cross-sectional study explored the complex interrelationships between university students' participation in religious activities and influential demographic, familial, and lifestyle factors. A sample of 400 students across diverse majors at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) in Bangladesh was systematically selected using stratified random sampling. Self-administered questionnaires gathered data on religious engagement, parent profiles, residential background, health behaviors, academic pressures, and psychosocial experiences. Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analyses examined participation correlates. Key findings revealed students from rural high schools had substantially higher odds (23 times) of involvement versus urban peers, potentially reflecting stronger community ties. Breakfast habits also impacted engagement, as those never taking breakfast had lower participation odds (0.08 times) versus regular consumers, indicating potential lifestyle synergies. Meanwhile, family religiousness strongly predicted students’ activity, with those having relatives never participating exhibiting lower odds (0.04 times) but those with regularly engaged kin showing higher odds (8.6 times), underlining household influence. Additionally, those facing social isolation demonstrated significantly lower participation odds, warranting interventions. Overall, rurality, family religious climate, nutrition, and loneliness emerged as salient factors shaping students’ religious engagement. The complex patterning underscores the merits of evidence-guided, tailored initiatives promoting equitable involvement opportunities leveraging spiritual participation’s psychosocial protective effects. As Bangladesh progresses amidst rising religious diversity, nurturing campus climates enabling voluntary, non-discriminatory expression of faith can catalyze multifaceted student development.
... In another three-wave, two-year longitudinal study on high school students, Heaven and Ciarrochi (2007) found that psychoticism at Time 1 and 2-characterized by hostility and aggressiveness, thus reflecting behavioural dysregulation-individually predicted lower religiosity at Time 3 (i.e., adherence to religious values). Further, conscientiousness at Time 1 and Time 2 independently predicted increased religiosity at Time 3. In another one-year longitudinal study, Regnerus and Smith (2005) found that religious adolescents who exhibited lower frequency of parent-and self-reported self-regulatory behaviours (e.g., temper tantrums, risk-taking behaviours) indicated lower religiosity (i.e., frequency of religious service attendance). Together, the abovementioned studies illustrate how self-regulatory traits may be instrumental in promoting individuals' religious development and adherence over the lifespan. ...
... Second, few studies have longitudinally examined the bidirectional relations between religiosity and self-regulatory traits and abilities. In particular, the majority of extant longitudinal studies either investigated the predictive value of religiosity on self-regulatory traits, or vice versa (e.g., Bartkowski et al., 2008;McCullough et al., 2003McCullough et al., , 2005Regnerus & Smith, 2005). Given the assertion by McCullough and Willoughby (2009) that longitudinal, along with experimental, studies are instrumental in determining the causal relationships between religiosity and self-regulation, there is a need to clarify currently hazy understandings surrounding the bidirectionality between religiosity and self-regulatory traits and abilities using a longitudinal approach. ...
... Our study yielded several notable outcomes. First, consistent with previous studies (e.g., Desmond et al., 2013;McCullough et al., 2005;Regnerus & Smith, 2005), our cross-sectional findings showed that religious identification was positively related to self-regulatory traits. Two likely hypotheses have been advanced to account for this link. ...
While there has been considerable research on the link between religiosity and self-regulation, the directionality of both constructs remains equivocal. Moreover, little is known regarding the association between religiosity and performance-based measures of self-regulatory abilities, given that past studies have predominantly examined self-regulatory traits via self-reports. Drawing from a 9-year longitudinal dataset (Time 1: n = 4836; Time 2: n = 3467), cross-sectional findings indicated that religious identification was positively and negatively correlated with self-regulatory traits and abilities, respectively. Longitudinal findings revealed that self-regulatory abilities predicted negative changes in religious identification, and this effect strengthened from middle to late adulthood. No longitudinal relations between religious identification and self-regulatory traits were found. Our findings highlight the differential associations of religious identification with self-regulatory traits and abilities, and how these associations are modulated by advancing adulthood.
... While the moral landscape of contemporary businesses is continually changing, religion 1 remains an important source of values that inform the decisions of business leaders (Karakas 2010;Vasconcelos 2010). In fact, religion is known to have a powerful influence on leaders' work behavior, attitudes, and perceptions (Lynn et al. 2011;Regnerus and Smith 2005). For example, improved strategic decisionmaking, the alignment of values and corporate vision, and virtuous leadership ethics have all been positively correlated with higher levels of religion in the workplace (Benefiel et al. 2014;Cavanagh and Bandsuch 2002). ...
... Despite the apparent connections, only a few studies link the solidarity dimensions listed in Table 1 to a family's religious values. For example, Regnerus and Smith (2005) explore the influence of religious participation and salience in people's lives and find that religious salience is a consistent predictor of better family relations. However, the authors do not investigate business-owning families and thus do not consider the outcomes that religious values can additionally have for family businesses. ...
... We adopted Schwartz's values theory to assess the standing of religious values for the family. Schwartz's (1992) theory of human values offers a typology of ten personal values that are recognized across cultures and explain their underlying priorities (Regnerus and Smith 2005). This typology has also been widely utilized to identify the specific values associated with religiosity (Roccas 2005; Roccas and Schwartz Schwartz and Huismans 1995). ...
Research indicates that religious values and ethical behavior are closely associated, yet, at a firm level, the processes by which this association occurs are poorly understood. Family firms are known to exhibit values-based behavior, which in turn can lead to specific firm-level outcomes. It is also known that one’s family is an important incubator, enabler, and perpetuator of religious values across successive generations. Our study examines the experiences of a single, multigenerational business family that successfully enacted their religious values in their business. Drawing upon intergenerational solidarity and values-based leadership theory, and by way of an interpretive, qualitative analysis, we find that the family’s religious values enhanced their cohesion and were manifested in their leadership style, which, in turn, led to outcomes for the business. Our findings highlight the processes that underlie the relationship between religious values and organizational outcomes in family firms and offer insights into the role of solidarity in values-based leadership.
... It appears to be clear the positive relationship between religiosity and SWB, even though most of the evidence comes from correlational studies and there are implications of selection effects to be taken into account. Indeed, as Regnerus and Smith (2005) very well underlined, the observed association may be the result of alternative possible processes involving different relationships and directions of causal influences. Self-selection is likely to happen and religious individuals who report to be happy may be more likely to stay religious; moreover, poorly measured differences between those involved in religion activities and the non-religious may play an important role. ...
... Indeed, there is a selection effect to take into account due to the fact that individuals choose how important is religion in their life; thus, they might tend to consider themselves as less or more religious for different reasons, including several that have nothing to do with the content of the religion itself. Such reasons might include personality type, age, race or ethnicity and cultural surroundings ( Regnerus and Smith, 2005). If those reasons also affect the reported well-being, then we end up with attributing to religion what, instead, might have nothing to do with it. ...
... Moreover, self-selection might arise if happy people may take up religion to pursue spiritual well-being and, people who find happiness in religious involvement may be more likely to stay religious than those who do not ( Lim and Putnam, 2010). This is related to what Regnerus and Smith (2005) calls the religious strategy explanation. In other words, individuals might use religion as a strategy for achieving a desired outcome such as being married or staying healthy (i.e. if an individual has already an aptitude for being married, then he/she could choose of being involved in religion activities as a strategy for achieving that result). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of religious involvement on subjective well-being (SWB), specifically taking into account the implication of selection effects explaining religious influence using the British Household Panel Survey data set.
Design/methodology/approach
In order to measure the level of religious involvement, the authors construct different indices on the base of individual religious belonging, participation and beliefs applying a propensity score matching estimator.
Findings
The results show that religious active participation plays a relevant role among the different aspects of religiosity; moreover, having a strong religious identity such as, at the same time, belonging to any religion, attending religious services once a week or more and believing that religion makes a great difference in life, has a high causal impact on SWB. The authors’ findings are robust to different aspects of life satisfaction.
Originality/value
The authors offer an econometric account of the causal impact of different aspects of religiosity finding evidence that the causal effect of religious involvement on SWB is better captured than through typical regression methodologies focussing on the mean effects of the explanatory variables.
... However, online anonymous surveys are considered to the one of the best tools to evaluate sensitive information, guaranteeing respondents privacy and improving honesty (Coutts & Jann, 2011). Further to this point, there is little evidence to suggest any robust association between religiosity (the key independent variables) and the tendency to give biased, socially desirable responses (Regnerus & Smith, 2005). However, it would be helpful for future studies to rule out sources of response bias in work on religion and sexual behaviors. ...
... It is possible, for instance, that individuals who sext may withdraw from religious communities or decrease their religious beliefs if they feel stigmatized for violating religious norms. Moreover, it is possible that sexting that may precede or even cause R/S struggles, or that selection effects whereby those who engage in sexting self-select out of religion and perhaps report greater struggles (e.g., Regnerus & Smith, 2005). In addition, since the data were collected roughly one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, they do not consider changes in religious behaviors (e.g., due to the re-opening of churches) or subsequent shifts in sexual behavior. ...
Scholars have noted a rise in sexting behavior in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the association between religion and sexual behavior has been widely studied, researchers have yet to consider whether sexting behavior might vary according to levels of religiosity. Building on prior research, this study uses national survey data to formally test whether several dimensions of religiosity (religious attendance, divine control, and religious/spiritual struggles) are associated with the sexting behavior of women (n = 619, Mage = 40.28, SD = 11.50) and men (n = 548, Mage = 40.04, SD = 11.51). Results suggest that the odds of sexting are lower among women who report higher levels of in-person religious attendance (not virtual attendance) and greater perceptions of divine control. Among women and men, the odds of sexting are higher among those who report more religious/spiritual struggles. This study is among the first to show how various dimensions of religiosity might influence sexting behavior in different ways for women and men during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important for future research to replicate our findings and to consider whether other dimensions of religiosity might also contribute to the likelihood of sexting in an increasingly digital world.
... In other words, the interpretation of this relationship and the cause and effect direction between religiosity and SWB are not dealt with in these researches. As Regnerus and Smith (2005) point out, the potential endogenous problem associated with the concept of religiosity may arise in several ways. In fact, "people themselves choose the degree of the importance of religion in their lives and, based on that, decide on the role of religion in their decisions and life issues. ...
... To see the results, we can refer to the article (Smith andRegnerus, 2005). [ DOI: 10.52547/jme.17.2.219 ] [ Downloaded from jme.mbri.ac.ir on 2023-01-31 ] Mohammadbeigi / Religion and Subjective Well-Being: Evidence from PSM Approach 231 ...
... While the evidence suggests that more religiously engaged students have better academic outcomes, questions remain as to how to interpret this evidence. The existing evidence has been derived from approaches that inherently limit the scope of inference, which creates uncertainty about whether the "effect" of religiosity on academic outcomes is causal or spurious (Bagiella, Hong, and Sloan 2005;Cochran, Wood, and Arneklev 1994;Freeman 1986;Regnerus and Smith 2005). Based on the existing evidence, we are concerned that family-level factors are confounding the relationship between religiosity and academic outcomes and thus contributing to underestimates or overestimates of the actual effect of religiosity i . ...
... Our concern stems from evidence that religiosity is endogenous and thus subject to selection bias (Regnerus and Smith 2005). Selection bias, which occurs when nonrandom factors influence one's religiosity, may lead to confounding (Starks, Diehr, and Curtis 2009). ...
... First, most previous studies on the association between religious involvement and subjective wellbeing are limited by its reliance on cross-sectional data, making it difficult to establish a causal relationship. The observed association between religious involvement and subjective well-being may be caused by other unobserved common factors, such as genetic factors, time/taste preference, and cognitive skills (Regnerus and Smith 2005). Additionally, there is possibility of positive selection, that is, happier people may select into religion (Regnerus and Smith 2005). ...
... The observed association between religious involvement and subjective well-being may be caused by other unobserved common factors, such as genetic factors, time/taste preference, and cognitive skills (Regnerus and Smith 2005). Additionally, there is possibility of positive selection, that is, happier people may select into religion (Regnerus and Smith 2005). It is possible that people elect to be religious due to anticipated benefits associated with religious involvement, and that people who find happiness in religion are more likely to stay than those do not. ...
We examine the linkage between religious involvement and life satisfaction among adults in contemporary China, a largely nonreligious society. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies (2012, 2014, and 2016), we conduct latent class analysis by using four indicators of religious involvement, including membership of religious groups, types of religion, frequency of participation, and evaluation of importance of religion in life. We classify the sample into four latent classes: (1) the pure nonreligious, (2) the nonreligious, but with some spirituality, (3) Chinese-religion adherent, and (4) organized religion adherent. Results from our fixed-effect models show that Chinese-religion and organized-religion adherents have higher levels of life satisfaction than those with no religious beliefs. Moreover, the disadvantaged groups benefit more from religious involvement in China, as evidenced by the stronger positive effect of religious adherence found among rural residents and individuals in the lowest income quartile. We discuss the benefits of religion both in terms of its public/social and private/intrinsic aspects and situate our findings in the larger social context of China.
... Because religious attendance is a social activity, individuals with prosocial personality traits may be selected into religious communities (Bradley 1995;Ellison and George 1994;Regnerus and Smith 2005;Rote et al. 2013). Personalities are patterned ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. ...
... Processes related to behavior selection are much less well known (Regnerus and Smith 2005). The general idea is that people who engage in behaviors that are normative to a group are more likely to become members or remain as members of the group. ...
Although numerous studies have shown that religious attendance is associated with greater social support, concerns remain about selection into religious attendance and more supportive relationships. In this paper, we employ data collected from the 2011 Miami-Dade Health Survey (n = 444) to assess the extent to which the association between religious attendance and social support is due to selection processes related to personality, health behavior, and health status. In our multinomial logistic regression of attendance, we find that the odds of weekly attendance are increased by extraversion and reduced by smoking. We also observe that religious attendance does not vary according to level of agreeableness, self-esteem, alcohol consumption, psychological distress, or physical health. In our regression of support, we find that respondents who attend religious services weekly or more tend to report more social support than respondents who never attend. This association persisted with adjustments for age, gender, race, immigrant status, interview language, education, employment status, household income, financial strain, marital status (parent and respondent), the presence of children, family difficulties, personality (agreeableness, extroversion, and self-esteem), health behavior (smoking, binge drinking, and substance use), and health status (psychological distress, activity limitations, and overall physical health). Across models, the association between weekly attendance and social support is attenuated by no more than 7%. This attenuation is due to personality (extraversion), not health behavior or health status. We conclude that the association between religious attendance and social support is primarily driven by integration processes rather than any selection processes we have considered.
... While clergy are concerned with changing a person's moral character, prison officials are concerned with managing unacceptable behaviors such as prison violence and rule infractions. According to Regnerus and Smith (2005), those who possess a high religious commitment are more likely to demonstrate more positive attitude and appropriate conduct. ...
... Prison violence is a public safety issue; yet despite this fact, relatively little attention has focused on this aspect of social work. Despite that studies have shown, those who possess a high religious commitment are more likely to demonstrate a positive attitude and appropriate conduct (Regnerus & Smith, 2005), only recently has the social work profession begun to acknowledge the role of client spirituality in social work practice. As a result, closely examining religiosity as a method for diminishing or ameliorating antisocial behavior that leads to acts of prison misconduct and inmate violence is pivotal in forensic social work. ...
FROM VIOLATION TO REVELATION: FINDING FAITH IN THE DEPTHS OF PRISON HELL
Darcella Anita Patterson Sessomes, LCSW
Ram Cnaan, Ph.D., Dissertation Chair
As the violence in the United States grows, so does the potential for increased violence and misconduct inside its prisons. Religiosity and spirituality are two areas in which the social work profession is beginning to understand its value and in the rehabilitative and behavioral change process. This quantitative study explores two hypotheses: H1- inmates who participate in worship services and faith-based programs will have less disciplinary infractions than those who do not participate, and H2- inmates who participate in worship services and faith-based programs will have fewer times sent to administrative segregation or detention than those who do not participate. A secondary data analysis approach was achieved by examining the disciplinary infractions and the amount of times sent to administrative segregation and detention of a sample of 454 inmates. The analysis is presented in two parts: a preliminary and a primary analysis. Likeliness Ration Chi Squares of Omnibus Test, parametric values (i.e. mean, median) were calculated. Preliminary analyses consist of T-test, ANOVA, crosstabs, Chi-square test and Spearman’s correlation were utilized to test the relationship between each pair of variables. The primary analysis consists of negative binomial regression models. Findings from the both the preliminary and primary analyses indicate that although both hypotheses were not rejected, they received little support.
... Some would argue, however, that attributing such effects to religiosity, per se, is questionable. Regnerus and Smith (2005) review alternative explanations that support such dissent. For example, the selection effects explanation is based on a premise that individuals choose, that is, select, to be religious for a variety of reasons that may not be related to the content of religion at all. ...
... This is consistent with the argument inRegnerus and Smith (2005) that the frequency of church attendance in many cases may not be something that an individual actually chooses.3 Our primary two-equation model amounts to a restricted version of the trivariate model with zero error correlations between church attendance and the other two equations (religious importance and same-sex support).4 ...
Objectives
The effects of religiosity and sociodemographic characteristics on support for same‐sex marriage (SSM) are estimated.
Methods
An ordered probability model with ordinal endogenous treatment is estimated. Treatment effects of religiosity and marginal effects of other covariates are calculated.
Results
Religiosity reduces the likelihood of SSM support. This impact can be attenuated by educational achievement, Democratic Party affiliation, higher incomes, and greater contact with gays and lesbians. The importance of religion has no differential impact on the marginal effects of other covariates.
Conclusions
We expect the litigation of cases in which gay married couples allege victimization from some form of discrimination, which, in turn, will be defended on the grounds of religious freedom. Religious freedom supporters will come from the intrinsically religious, evangelicals, strong Republicans, and African Americans; same‐sex couples will draw support from those who are more educated, strongly Democratic, and at the higher end of the income distribution.
... Percebeu-se que tanto mulheres quanto homens foram pesquisados, dependendo da disponibilidade dessa variável na base de dados utilizada, ou do desenho da amostra, quando a coleta de dados foi feita pelos próprios autores. Algumas bases de dados destacam-se pela grande quantidade de artigos publicados utilizando seus dados, como a National Survey of Family Growth (NFSG) (BILLY et al., 1994;COOKSEY et al., 1996;BREWSTER et al., 1998;MANLOVE et al., 2006;HAGLUND;FEHRING, 2010), a National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) (BEARMAN; BRÜCKNER, 2001;MEIER, 2003;ROSTOSKY et al., 2003;SMITH, 2005;FRANCIS, 2007;MENNING et al., 2007) e as DHS − Demographic Health Surveys (GUPTA, 2000;ADDAI, 2000;LONGO, 2001;ISHIDA;STUPP;McDONALD, 2011), que, embora sejam mais limitadas em termos de informação sobre religião, têm boa amostragem e intervalos decenais. ...
... Em Tanfer e Horn (1985), Albrecht et al. (1977), Kiragu e Zabin (1993), Bearman e Brückner (2001), Meier (2003, Rostosky et al. (2003), Regnerus e Smith (2005), Odimegwu (2005), Francis (2007), Haglund e Fehring (2010) e Burchardt (2011), a religiosidade foi medida com base nas respostas às perguntas sobre frequência de ida à igreja (ou comunhão), importância pessoal da religião para o jovem (exceto ALBRECHT et al., 1977), frequência que reza ou ora (exceto TANFER;HORN, 1985;KIRAGU;ZABIN, 1993;SMITH, 2005) ou outras variáveis pessoais do tipo participação em grupo de jovem (MEIER, 2003;FRANCIS, 2007), leitura da bíblia todos os dias, divulgação do evangelho, distribuição de material religioso e se a pessoa se importa com o que Deus pensa sobre ela (somente ODIMEGWU, 2005). ...
Religion, religiosity and sexual initiation during adolescence: lessons from a systematic literature review of a half-century of research The influence of religion on sexuality has been under investigation by international researchers for nearly half a century. Religion as a variable with effects on sexual behavior has emerged in Brazilian literature as this society goes through two related sets of changes, to wit, the religious landscape and norms and values associated with sexuality. Given the growing interest in this latter demographic variable, studies are needed on which to base future research in Brazil. The present paper seeks to review the Brazilian and international literature on links among religion, religiosity and adolescent sexual initiation and to identify manners of classifying religion and religiosity. Methodological issues that should be taken into account in studies on adolescent sexuality and religion are also discussed briefly. The literature review tracks and analyzes articles published between 1950 and 2010 in Portuguese and English using the SciELO, Atla and JSTOR databases as well as master´s theses and PhD dissertations from Cedeplar and theses and dissertations from UFMG (online database). © 2014 Associacao Brasileira de Estudos Populacionais. All right received.
... Religiosity is the quality of being religious; pious; devout and affected, with excessive devotion to religion (dictionary.com). Religiosity has been believed to have a strong effect on behaviors, outcomes, and attitudes as wide ranging as seatbelt use and optimism, and as important as morality and family relation (Regnerus & Smith, 2005). Strong belief in God is one of the values that Filipinos possess and cherish. ...
... Previous studies have found that the distinctive behaviour of Muslims is due to their adherence to Islamic doctrines (Muhamad & Mizerski, 2010;Regnerus & Smith, 2005). Their shopping styles, ethical beliefs as consumers and their sensitivity towards offensive advertising are different from other religious groups (Essoo & Dibb, 2004;Fam, Waller, & Erdogan, 2004). ...
As Malaysian Muslim consumers are more concerned about religious teachings, the doubt about the halalalness of the ingredients, processing and handling of the products has attracted Muslim consumers’ attention. Recently, Muslims are not only concerned about halal but the issue of “halalal tayibbah” has obtained great attention. In order to verify the “halalal tayibbah” concept, the acceptance of Muslim-made products is increasing in the market. With the spirit of helping the economy of the ummah, Muslim consumers tend to give their support to Muslim products. With a high demand for Muslim products, an initiative to introduce an Islamic-focused retail store has shown significant growth. Essentially, the store will provide a range of Muslim products as a substitute for previous brands. With regard to this phenomenon, the present study investigates the effect of Muslim products in an Islamic retail store on Muslim consumer-patronage behaviour. In order to get feedback, self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 384 patrons of Islamic retail stores in the northern region of Malaysia. The result of the partial least square analysis concluded that the provision of Muslim products has a significant impact on the patronage-behaviour of Muslim consumers. By buying Muslim products, Muslim consumers feel more confident that they are buying products that are religiously allowable and it prompts Muslim consumers’ buying-decisions in patronizing a store. Keywords: Muslim product. Muslim and patronage behaviour.
... Consistente con este punto de vista ecológico, pero dándole preminencia al factor religioso, Regnerus (2007) sostiene que para los jóvenes que se involucran en las iglesias no hay otra fuente de influencia social equivalente entre las alternativas seculares. Se llega frecuentemente a la conclusión de que la religión no ejerce influencia en los comportamientos juveniles, apuntan Regnerus y Smith (2005), porque no se contempla que ella puede vincularse indirectamente a determinado comportamiento. Para estos autores, la religión afecta las creencias, actitudes y conductas de los individuos no solo a través de sus enseñanzas (en forma directa) sino también a través de mecanismos de control y apoyo social y de la conformación de valores o de la identidad de los individuos. ...
El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar la asociación entre la afiliación religiosa y dos aspectos de la vida sexual de los jóvenes solteros en México: la iniciación y el uso de condón en la primera relación. Basándonos en la Encuesta Nacional de la Juventud 2005, describimos las diferencias en estos dos aspectos según la afiliación religiosa mediante la tabla de vida y estadística descriptiva respectivamente. Enseguida, empleamos el modelo de regresión de Cox para examinar la asociación entre religión y debut sexual, y el modelo de regresión logística para analizar la relación entre religión y uso de condón en dicho debut. Respecto de los católicos nominales y los jóvenes sin afiliación religiosa, los católicos practicantes y los protestantes evangélicos mostraron menores riesgos de iniciar su vida sexual y los evangélicos menores posibilidades de hacer uso de condón en el debut sexual.
... Religion strongly shapes attitudes, perceptions and behavior (Emmons & Paloutzian, 2003;Pargament, Magyar-Russell, & Murray-Swank, 2005;Regnerus & Smith, 2005) and has effects in work-related practices such as stress management, career development, risk aversion, and ethics (Brotheridge & Lee, 2007;Duffy, 2006;Ebaugh, Pipes, & Chafetz, 2003;Hilary & Hui, 2009;Longenecker, McKinney, & Moore, 2004;Mickel & Dallimore, 2009;Vitell, 2009). ...
Purpose
This study aims to examine the relationship of the Islamic work ethics, organizational commitment and job satisfaction of Muslim employees in the four Islamic commercial banks in Indonesia.
Design/methodology/approach
The study has adopted a quantitative method with descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. A stratified random sample of the executive management was taken, proportionate to the size of each organization. Out of a total of 250 distributed questionnaires, 220 respondents have responded. Frequencies and percentages were used to identify the characteristics of the respondents, while the preliminary data analysis of reliability and validity tests were used, along with the linear regression and the factor analysis of variance to answer the research question.
Findings
It found that the Islamic work ethics have a positive and significant relationship with organizational commitment and job satisfaction.
Originality/value
The sharia compliance requirement of Islamic banks is aligned with the Islamic work ethics’ principles and values, which thus could create in-depth organizational commitment among employees.
... Processes related to behavior selection are much less well known (Regnerus and Smith 2005). The general idea is that people who engage in behaviors that are normative to a group are more likely to become members or remain as members of the group. ...
In this paper, we directly assessed the extent to which the association between religious attendance and the social support trajectories of older Mexican Americans is due to selection (spurious) processes related to personality, health status, and health behavior. We employed seven waves of data from the Hispanic Established Populations for the Epidemiologic Study of the Elderly (1993-2010) to examine the association between religious attendance and perceived social support trajectories (n = 2,479). We used growth mixture modeling to estimate latent classes of social support trajectories and multivariate multinomial logistic regression models to predict membership in the social support trajectory classes. Growth mixture estimates revealed three classes of social support trajectories: high, moderate, and low. Multinomial logistic regression estimates showed that the odds of membership in the low support trajectory class (versus the high social support trajectory class) were lower for respondents who attended religious services yearly, monthly, weekly, and more than weekly than for respondents who never attend religious services. Religious attendance could not distinguish between membership in the moderate and high support trajectory classes. These results persisted with adjustments for age, gender, immigrant status, language proficiency, education, income, religious affiliation, marital status, living arrangements, contact with family/friends, secular group memberships, self-esteem, smoking, heavy drinking, depression, cognitive functioning, and physical mobility. We conclude that the association between religious attendance and the social support trajectories of older Mexican Americans is primarily driven by processes related to social integration, not selection.
... First, the present paper is correlational in nature; hence, the data did not allow any means to examine the direction of causality. The relationships may possibly have been caused by a selection mechanism (Regnerus and Smith 2005). In fact, subjective wellbeing outcomes are partly determined by genes and stable individual traits (Diener et al. 2003). ...
The present paper, using recent and nationally representative data from the Canadian General Social Surveys, is concerned with the association of religiosity with work-life balance satisfaction. The association of both private and public aspects of religiosity with work-life balance satisfaction is assessed. In addition, based on multiple questions on religion and spirituality, the sample is divided into six mutually exclusive categories of very religious, average religiosity, nominally affiliated, liminal, privately-spiritual, and strictly-secular. This typology, rooted in the recent religious scholarship, allows for a meaningful comparison across the growing and diverse segment of secularized individuals. The results point to a positive relationship between retaining ties with organized religion, as opposed to private spirituality or strict secularity, and work-life balance satisfaction. Various venues of explanation are explored.
... Religion strongly shapes attitudes, perceptions and behavior (Emmons & Paloutzian, 2003;Pargament, Magyar-Russell, & Murray-Swank, 2005;Regnerus & Smith, 2005) and has effects in work-related practices such as stress management, career development, risk aversion, and ethics (Brotheridge & Lee, 2007;Duffy, 2006;Ebaugh, Pipes, & Chafetz, 2003;Hilary & Hui, 2009;Longenecker, McKinney, & Moore, 2004;Mickel & Dallimore, 2009;Vitell, 2009). ...
Purpose-The study aims to examine the relationship between Islamic work ethics, organizational commitment and job satisfaction of Muslim employees in the four Islamic commercial banks in Indonesia.
Design/methodology/approach-The study has adopted a quantitative method with descriptive and inferential statistical analysis. A stratified random sample of the executive management was taken, proportionate to the size of each organization. Out of a total of 250 distributed questionnaires, 220 respondents have responded. Frequencies and percentages were used to identify the characteristics of the respondents, while the preliminary data analysis of reliability and validity tests were used, along with the linear regression and the factor analysis of variance to answer the research question.
Findings-It is found that the Islamic work ethics has a positive and significant relationship with organizational commitment and job satisfaction.
Originality/value-The shariah compliance requirement of Islamic banks is aligned with the Islamic work ethics' principles and values, which thus could create in-depth organizational commitment among employees.
... they utilized. Moreover, several other studies found support for the proposition that risk-averse people tend to report higher levels of religiousness (e.g., Liu 2010;Miller 2000;Regnerus and Smith 2005;Uecker, Regnerus, and Vaaler 2007), but they did not consider gender differences. Even though risk preference theory has not garnered consistent empirical support, there is a risk to dismissing it without a more careful evaluation of the original research. ...
Almost 25 years ago, Miller and Hoffmann developed a theory of risk preferences as a way to account for gender differences in religiousness. Although several subsequent studies have purportedly examined the theory, there has been no genuine replication of their empirical analysis. This study provides a replication and extension using three nationally representative samples of adolescents in the United States: the 2015 Monitoring the Future (n = 2,292) study, the 2010 National Survey of Drug Use and Health (n = 18,394), and the 2005 National Survey of Youth and Religion (n = 2,059). The results provide modest support for risk preference theory: the introduction of risk preferences diminishes the female‐male difference in religiousness among youth in all three data sets. However, there is also evidence that risk behaviors and religious affiliation may be more important than risk preferences in accounting for gender differences in religiousness.
... 2 At the same time, studies in the United States often find a positive association between religious involvement and academic achievement at the individual level. However, certain forms of religiosity, such as attendance at worship service, may reflect social capital or an underlying pro-social or strategic orientation (Lehrer 2004;Muller and Ellison 2001;Regnerus and Smith 2005). In this case, any association between religious attendance and educational outcomes would be spurious, not causal. ...
At the global level, Muslim women are less educated and have wider gender gaps than all other religious groups except Hindus. This is consistent with previous findings of lower female attainment and wider gender gaps in Muslim-majority countries. However, Muslim women made large educational gains in recent cohorts. As a result, Muslim women are catching up with other religious groups in average years of schooling, and educational gender equality is increasing.
Most prior studies have focused on religious differences in educational attainment and the factors that might explain lower attainment among Muslim women. Yet, by overlooking change across cohorts, many of these studies have incorrectly assumed that present-day differences in education levels between religious groups reflect static cultural differences in attitudes toward gender equality. Our results suggest that Islam is not restricting Muslim women’s educational attainment, at least not globally; Muslim women have less education than other religious groups but theyare catching up.
Country income is the strongest factor distinguishing countries where Muslim women are doing well from those where they have made more modest gains. Muslim women have higher levels of educational attainment and have larger increases in education levels across cohorts in richer countries than in poorer countries. By contrast, the Muslim share of the population, and the level of gender discrimination in family laws—factors that proxy Islam’s potential influence—were not associated with Muslim women’s education levels or cohort change. The findings bolster conclusions from the global analysis that Islam’s influence is more historical than contemporary. Among large Muslim populations, economic development, not cultural attitudes or conservative family laws, appears to be the key determinant of Muslim women’s education levels and progress toward gender equality.
... Researchers have discovered that the presence of a religious or spiritual affiliation in the microsystem has a greater impact on youth religiosity than factors such as attending a religious school (Regnerus & Smith, 2005; RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGICAL SALIENCE 9 2005). Based on their research, Smith and Denton (2005) and Smith and Snell (2009) argue that socialization from parents tends to have the greatest influence, followed by that of peers. ...
This mixed-methods exploratory study examined the psychological salience of religiosity and spirituality in a sample of young people (ages 16–21, M age = 18.9 years; SD = 1.36) from New Zealand. Participants completed a cross-sectional online questionnaire with both qualitative and quantitative questions that assessed subjective perceptions of religion and spirituality and theoretically linked social and cognitive (motivation and identity) factors associated with the psychological salience of religiosity/spirituality. The results showed considerable overlap in participants’ conceptualization of religiosity and spirituality as the two constructs related to participants’ faith; yet, the sample had greater affinity for spirituality than religiosity. Relationship quality and religious/spiritual support from family and friends were associated with a stronger community connection. This was associated with participants’ spiritual identity and extrinsic motivation to be involved in religious activities, which in turn predicted greater religious/spiritual salience. The findings replicate previous research in the relationship between religiosity and spirituality in Christian samples, and also breaks new ground in the conceptualization of the psychological salience of religiosity/spirituality and in identifying community connection as a link to increased religious/spiritual identity and motivation among adolescents and young adults.
... Church attendance is frequently viewed as frequenting a specific place of worship (Holland 2016). In many studies, religiosity is viewed as a multidimensional construct (Ahmed et al. 2011), containing dimensions of both spirituality and church attendance (Johnson et al. 2000a) with direct and indirect influence on behavior (Regnerus and Smith 2005). ...
Religious involvement has long been argued to have protective effects for negative behavioral health outcomes for vulnerable youth. This study builds on the existing resilience literature and need for more studies that examine protective factors associated with behavioral health. A sample of 638 low-income African American adolescents in Chicago to examine within group variations of the influence of religious involvement on delinquency, school engagement, substance use and sexual risk behaviors, and whether such relationships differ by gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic status. Logistic regression findings documented that greater religious involvement was protective with regards to lower rates of delinquency, drug use, risky sexual behaviors and higher rates of school engagement, and that gender, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status varied for several of these relationships. Overall findings are discussed with regards to future research.
... La única excepción al condicionamiento mutuo de las variables de ir a la iglesia y valorar la religión es la asociación positiva de ir a la iglesia con amigos, que, aún con un valor nulo por la religión, se asocia en general a la disminución de la posibilidad de abuso del alcohol. Una explicación para esta excepción podría ser que la asistencia a la iglesia con otros tiene el potencial de ejercer una influencia indirecta en la reducción del abuso del alcohol (Regnerus y Smith, 2005), ya que podría indicar que el adolescente está rodeado de una red social religiosa, distinta a los padres, que potencialmente puede protegerlo de la oportunidad de consumir y abusar del alcohol e influir en la estimación de riesgos vinculados a este comportamiento. ...
... Seven of them were published by the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, which is the official journal of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and one of the largest organizations of this type in North America. The Review of Religious Research, a more applied journal, published the other article (Regnerus and Smith 2005). Somewhat surprising, Sociology of Religion, the official journal of the Association for the Sociology of Religion, did not publish any articles on religion and crime. ...
Over the last twenty years researchers have given a lot of attention to the relationship between religion and crime, finding that religion tends to have a deterring influence on crime-related attitudes and behaviors. While a variety of studies have been published in this area, little work has been done to assess the state of research on religion and crime. Because so much research has consistently found a relationship, work on religion may be able to offer fresh insight into criminological theory and substantive research more generally. This study fills a gap in current understanding by conducting a systematic review of empirically-based journal articles published between 2004 and 2014. The analysis, which assesses qualitative and quantitative studies, offers theoretical and empirical insight into what religion brings to the study of crime, and vice versa. The results focus on the data sources, methods, theories, and journals used in producing research on religion and crime. The findings highlight the most popular theoretical perspectives, which include religious contextual effects, social control, and social learning, as well as the least popular ones. Insight into the strengths and weaknesses of current research on religion and crime is provided, as is direction for future research into this innovative area of research.
... 290). Religion, therefore, can "directly influence attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors" (Regnerus & Smith 2005;p. 24). ...
Using pooled data from the General Social Surveys, we estimated a bivariate ordered probit model of support for legalized elective- and traumatic- based abortions. Unlike past literature, we treat religiosity (practice and salience), religious orthodoxy, political ideology, and party identification as endogenous regressors. Religious orthodoxy is found to reduce the probability of supporting legalized abortions while religiosity increases it. Increases in political conservatism reduce the probability of supporting legalized abortions by substantial amounts. Surprisingly, movement along the party identification spectrum from strong Democrat to strong Republican increases the likelihood of supporting legalized abortion, likely reflecting the greater importance attached to limited government and the preservation of individual freedoms, after controlling for religious orthodoxy and self-placement along the liberal conservative dimension. Quantitatively, however, the negative impacts of increased political conservatism are dominant
... In several longitudinal studies examining the reciprocal effects of religiosity and relational behaviors among young Americans, Thornton and his colleagues (Thornton and Camburn 1989;Thornton et al. 1992) report that while religiosity predicts lower likelihood of non-marital sex and cohabitation, Seeing is (Not) Believing engaging in these behaviors also predicts declines in religious participation over time. And in studies using Add Health panel data, scholars show that adolescents who participate in drug use, binge drinking, theft, or non-marital sexuality show declines in religious service attendance and importance of religious faith in later waves (Regnerus and Smith 2005;Regnerus and Uecker 2006;Uecker et al. 2007). ...
Pornography has become increasingly accessible in the United States, and particularly for younger Americans. While some research considers how pornography use affects the sexual and psychological health of adolescents and emerging adults, sociologists have given little attention to how viewing pornography may shape young Americans' connection to key social and cultural institutions, like religion. This article examines whether viewing pornography may actually have a secularizing effect, reducing young Americans' personal religiosity over time. To test for this, we use data from three waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion. Random and fixed effects regression models show that more frequent pornography viewing diminishes religious service attendance, prayer frequency, religious salience, and perceived closeness to God, while increasing religious doubts. These effects hold regardless of gender. The effects of viewing pornography on religious salience, closeness to God, and religious doubts are stronger for teenagers compared to emerging adults. In light of the rapidly growing availability and acceptance of pornography for young Americans, our findings suggest that scholars must consider how increasingly pervasive pornography consumption may shape both the religious lives of young adults and also the future landscape of American religion more broadly.
... For example, in several longitudinal studies examining the reciprocal effects of religiosity and relational behaviors, Thornton and his colleagues (Thornton and Camburn 1989;Thornton et al. 1992) report that while religiosity predicts lower likelihood of non-marital sex and cohabitation, engaging in these behaviors also predicts declines in religious participation over time. And in studies using Add Health panel data, scholars show that adolescents who participate in nonmarital sexuality show declines in religious service attendance and importance of religious faith later on (Regnerus and Smith 2005;Regnerus and Uecker 2006;Uecker et al. 2007). In accounting for the observed reciprocal effects between forms of sexual "deviance" and religion, scholars theorize that religiosity is weakened from the "cognitive dissonance" or mental stress that results from failing to reconcile discrepancies between one's sexual behavior and one's religious beliefs or identity (see, for example, Regnerus 2007:53-54;Regnerus and Uecker 2006: 232;Smith and Snell 2009:84;Uecker et al. 2007Uecker et al. :1684. ...
Research suggests that frequent pornography use holds consequences both for the marital experiences of devoutly-religious Americans and religious commitment itself. Extending this line of research, this study considers how pornography viewing influences the religious bonding of heterosexually married Americans by affecting the frequency with which they pray with their spouses. Longitudinal data are taken from two waves of the nationally representative Portraits of American Life Study. Multivariate findings show the net effect of earlier porn viewing on the frequency with which married Americans pray with their spouses is curvilinear. Married Americans who never viewed pornography report praying with their spouses more often than the average; those who used pornography at moderate levels report praying with their spouses below the average; and a small minority of respondents who used pornography at the highest frequencies report praying with their spouses more than the average. These effects are robust to controls for respondents' religious characteristics, moral beliefs about pornography, marital happiness, and sociodemographic factors. The study concludes by outlining the limitations and implications of these findings for research on religion, pornography use, and families.
The design field has grown significantly in recent years, and its impact on society has been increasingly significant. Designers must be mindful of the values guiding their work as they significantly affect their products and experiences. Designers play a crucial role in determining what to design and manufacture, as their role is strongly related to the ethical consideration way of thinking. This paper explores the best Islamic values that can cultivate excellent designers and enhance their ability to create meaningful and impactful designs. Through a comprehensive review of relevant literature and thematic analysis, this paper demonstrates how Islamic value can be integrated into the designing processes to create a more ethical and sustainable. This paper explores the relationship between Asma'ul Husna and design thinking, highlighting how designers can use these attributes to strengthen the designers' ethical abstraction ability, thereby cultivating excellent designers. Through the incorporation of the values contained within Asma'ul Husna, the designers can come out with designs that meet users' expectations, creative and innovative while at the same time contributing to society in a greater context. In conclusion, this review justifies the importance of integrating Asma'ul Husna into designing processes. It emphasizes the significance of understanding and incorporating these values to become more effective and ethical in design practice.
Extant research reveals an inconclusive relationship between higher education and religiosity,
which might be due to the selection effect, or to the different religiosity measures used. To
address this, we analyze data of a cohort of adolescents from the 1997 National Longitudinal
Study of Youth to investigate the association between religion and education. First, we assess the
relationship between the child’s religious environment and their likelihood of attending college.
Second, we investigate how college attendance and completion affect subsequent changes in
religiosity as they age into young adulthood. Results suggest that adolescent religious environment
significantly predicts subsequent college enrollment. Completing college is associated with
subsequent decline in private religiosity index, after accounting for adolescent religious influence,
peer influence, and early family formation; suggesting robustness against selection effects.
Enrollment or completion of college has a complicated association with subsequent religious
attendance. Fundamentalist Christians do not experience the same declines in religious attendance
as other religious traditions after enrolling in college, but additional research is needed to
confirm the robustness of this finding. Our study contributes to the nuanced understanding of the
relationship between higher education and religion by adopting a life course perspective that
reveals the heterogeneity of the relationship by religious affiliations and the socio-cultural norms
associated with them.
The study uses nationally representative data to examine whether the moral freighting Putnam and Campbell (2010) propose, based on American experiences, may apply to overall British society. Specifically, it tests whether religious service attendance increases religious or secular organizational activities, possibly due to moral freight-ing that encourages religious congregants to practice their faith, transcending ego boundaries and self-interest. It is also necessary to determine if engagement in religious or secular organizational activities elevates the degree of religious service attendance, thus forming a bidirectional association. The study employs the maximum likelihood-structural equation modeling (ML-SEM) method to verify the proposed reciprocity. The empirical tests confirm that a synergistic reciprocal relationship is established between religious service attendance and religious organizational engagement, and that religious service attendance increases secular organizational engagement. However, secular organizational engagement does not make a bidirectional contribution to religious service attendance .
Este trabalho analisa a relação entre religião e uso de tabaco entre funcionários públicos de campi universitários no Rio de Janeiro e participantes do Estudo Pró-Saúde em suas ondas 1 (1999, n=4030) e 4 (2012-13, n=2933). Foram utilizados questionários auto-administrados; associações transversais e longitudinais entre as variáveis independente (religião) e dependente (fumar/não fumar) foram estimadas via razões de chances em modelos de regressão logística ajustados para idade, sexo, raça/cor, situação conjugal, frequência religiosa e escolaridade. Foi identificado que respondentes evangélicos pentecostais, em contraste com aqueles de religiões afro-brasileiras, apresentaram menor chance de fumar e de iniciar o uso de tabaco entre as duas ondas da pesquisa. Este estudo contribui para o conhecimento sobre as relações entre religião e saúde ao incluir dados longitudinais sobre a transição para o tabagismo e sua cessação e indica a pertinência da investigação do tema em relação a outros hábitos e condições de saúde.
This study examines the effect of the pay gap on banks and compares the effectiveness of the tournament theory in Islamic banks (IB) and conventional banks (CB). This study expands the pay gap indicators used in previous studies by using three indicators: board of directors’ pay gap, commissioners’ pay gap and employees’ pay gap. The sample is 23 banks, observed from 2009 to 2019, which results in 239 bank-years. The test results show that we have not found a relationship between a pay gap and bank performance. However, the subsample test, which involves separating Islamic banks and conventional banks, reports different findings. The tournament theory is effectively applied to the employee payroll system and shows a large employee pay gap will improve the performance of IBs and CBs. However, the effect of tournaments on IBs is greater than it is on CBs. The tournament theory is not effectively applied to the salary system for the boards of commissioners. However, the large pay gap for board of directors of CBs causes communication, coordination and collaboration problems between the board of directors and further reduces bank performance. However, in IBs, the pay gap of board of directors has no effect on bank performance. We recommend that banks should provide different salaries for employees at the various different levels. However, we do not recommend that banks create a large pay gap for board of directors because this will lead to poorer performance.
Churches have long been sites of local charity work as well as national political movements. What happens when people engage in more individualistic forms of spirituality, like mindfulness meditation or yoga, rather than participate in religious communities? Might the rise of individualized forms of spirituality lead to a decline in political engagement? Or, among people averse to religion, might spiritual practice operate as a substitute, and potentially contribute to political engagement? Drawing on burgeoning theory of religion and spirituality as socially-situated boundary objects, we use data from the 2020 National Religion and Spirituality Survey to examine the relationship between self-reported spiritual and religious practices and political engagement. First, we investigate whether study participants distinguish spiritual and religious practice as distinct concepts through factor analysis. Next, we use those results to examine the association between these practices and reports of political behavior. We find a consistent, positive relationship between spiritual practice and political engagement of comparable magnitude to that of religious practices. Notably, during an era of heightened political polarization around religious engagement, political progressives, respondents of color, and members of the LGBT community are more likely to report spiritual rather than religious practices. This points us to a theory of spiritual practice as a substitute for religious engagement among groups alienated from religious institutions, with the former capable of fostering similar proclivities for political action as the latter. Our results suggest critiques of a “selfish” spirituality have been overblown.
The present study explores whether adolescent religiosity, health-related behaviors, and marital stability mediate the association between parental religiosity and health. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult (Add) Health, I model potential direct and indirect effects between three measures of parental religiosity (i.e., parental institutional religiosity, parental personal religiosity, and parental religious affiliation); three sets of mediators indicating adolescent religiosity, health-related behaviors, and marital stability; and self-rated health during late adolescence/early adulthood. Overall, I found that parental institutional religiosity has a direct effect on the self-rated health of children during late adolescence/early adulthood, and that it influences self-rated health by reducing adolescent and parental smoking. I also found evidence for deleterious effects of parental institutional religiosity on health as well. Future research should explore variation in the influence of parental religiosity on self-rated health between various sociodemographic groups and between different stages of the life course.
Most studies of the effect of religiosity on volunteering overlook or fail to deal adequately with the possibility that there is reverse causal relation, from volunteering to religiosity, which should be taken into account. Using four waves of the Americans’ Changing Lives study, we estimate a reciprocal relationship between church attendance and religious and secular volunteering, using dynamic panel models with fixed effects using structural equation modeling and measuring both lagged and proximate effects. Religious service attendance increases future religious volunteering via its proximate effect on religious volunteering while religious volunteering has cross‐lagged and proximate effects on both religious service attendance and secular volunteering. On the other hand, there are neither cross‐lagged nor proximate effects between church going and secular volunteering. Religious and secular types of volunteering are reciprocally related, suggesting religious people are drawn into secular work not only directly, but also via their volunteer work for religious organizations.
The concept of religiosity as characterized by deep faith in a Divine Being still holds true to
almost every individual human person. An individual seeks the presence of a Supreme
Deity to govern him and for him to adore. The religiosity of a person has something to do
with the moral character he or she is forming. This paper determined the level of religiosity
of the students, extent of their religiosity and how they view these concepts in their lives.
Most of the respondents are Roman Catholics since Catholicism is still the religion in the
Philippines that has the most number of believers. The result reveals that the power of
media, side by side with one’s educational attainment can be influential to a person’s
religiosity.
Background
Nearly half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. Unintended pregnancy refers to a mistimed or unwanted pregnancy. Unwanted and mistimed pregnancies are often distinguished from each other because of the negative social connotations and poorer health outcomes associated with unwanted pregnancies. However, mistimed pregnancies also pose significant economic, societal, and health burdens that necessitate enhanced risk factor identification and prevention efforts.PurposeReligion and religious practices are important to consider as potential risk factors for mistimed pregnancy as over 70% of Americans identify as religious. However, little research exists on the potential religious factors-mistimed pregnancy association. The purpose of this study was to evaluate this association among women using contraception in the U.S.Methods
This analysis used National Survey of Family Growth data. Women (n = 2841) self-reported measures of religion, religiosity and pregnancy timing. Logistic regression was used to obtain odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals.ResultsAfter adjustment, women who reported currently being Catholic, Protestant, or another religion had statistically significant increased odds of mistimed pregnancy compared to women with no current religious affiliation (Catholic OR = 2.31, Protestant OR = 1.41, Other OR = 2.58). Women who reported that religion was very important or somewhat important had statistically significant increased odds of mistimed pregnancy (Very Important OR = 1.82, Somewhat Important OR = 1.60). More frequent service attendance was associated with statistically significant decreased odds of mistimed pregnancy. Specifically, women who reported attending services 2–3 times a month or 1 or more times per week had nearly half the odds of mistimed pregnancy compared to women who never attended services (OR = 0.54 and OR = 0.51).Conclusions and ImplicationsThis study provides insight into the interrelationship of religion as a sociocultural risk factor for mistimed pregnancy and found that while religiously active women had increased odds of mistimed pregnancy, frequency of service attendance was a protective factor against mistimed pregnancy. Given that approximately half of pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended, additional studies are needed to further understand cultural mechanisms that may be important risk factors of unintended pregnancy, and to confirm this study’s findings.
Two well-known findings are that the religious are happier than the non-religious, and people are less happy when they lose their job. We investigate a link between these by asking whether religion buffers against the negative effect of unemployment on happiness. Although theorized or implicitly assumed in many studies, empirical demonstrations of a causal, moderating effect of religion have been infrequent and often not strong methodologically. We conduct individual-level fixed effects models to test for the buffering effect in the US context using recent panel data from the 2006–2014 General Social Surveys. Religious service attendance, belief in life after death, and trying to carry one’s religious beliefs over into other dealings in life all substantially buffered the effect of unemployment on happiness. Praying daily, believing God exists, identifying as a religious person, and having a religious affiliation did not. We discuss these results in the context of prior work and existing theory. To further support a causal interpretation of these findings, we also conduct a secondary analysis showing that unemployment does not appear to increase or decrease religiousness. This paper makes an important sociological contribution to the growing field of happiness research and to our understanding of how religion matters to people during hard times.
Religiosity has been positively linked with multiple measures of academic success, but it is unclear whether the “effect” of religiosity on academic outcomes is causal or spurious. One source of heterogeneity that may contribute to a child’s level of religiosity and his/her academic success is family background. This paper is the first to use sibling differences to estimate the associations between religiosity on short and long-term academic success. Our analysis yields two main results. First, more religious adolescents earned higher GPAs in high school, even after including family fixed effects. Second, because they earned higher GPAs in high school, more religious adolescents completed more years of education 14 years after their religiosity was measured. Our findings suggest that adolescents’ religious commitments influence their schooling in both the short and long term and should be more actively included and theorized as important drivers of educational and economic stratification.
The present study examines whether the association between substance use and two dimensions of religiosity—institutional and personal—changes as individuals transition from adolescence to early adulthood. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult (Add) Health, logistic regression models with interaction terms were run to test the hypothesis that the association between an individual's religiosity and his or her level of substance use is stronger during early adulthood compared to adolescence. This hypothesis is based on the observation that the shared family environment largely explains the association between religiosity and substance use during adolescence, while individual‐level characteristics largely explain this association during early adulthood. Overall, my findings support the research hypothesis, but only for the association between institutional religiosity and stigmatized types of substance use (smoking and marijuana use). This study highlights the fact that studies exploring the association between religiosity and substance use should consider potential variation between life stages.
The reciprocal effects of religiosity and life satisfaction are examined in a three-wave panel study of German former high school students at ages 30, 43 and 56. Religiosity is measured as church attendance and Christian belief such that three measures are followed up over three time points. Analyses by structural equation modelling in discrete time and continuous time are compared. According to both methods, church attendance has the strongest autoregression/auto-effect, followed by Christian worldview, and next by life satisfaction; furthermore, all cross-regressions/cross-effects are slightly negative. The answer to both questions in the title is therefore negative. In contrast to the cross-regressions in the discrete-time analysis, the continuous-time analysis reveals significance of all negative cross-effects and reverses the strength order of the cross-effects between the two dimensions of religiosity. Continuous-time analysis also enables to compute and display the complete autoregression and cross-regression functions as well as the development of means and variances of the three variables across continuous time.
Using a large, nationally representative Canadian survey (N = 12,922), this paper investigates how religiosity associates with environmental philanthropy. Based on the degree of religiosity, the population is divided into five mutually exclusive segments of very religious, average religiosity, nominal affiliate, unchurched believer, and strictly secular. The analysis shows that the individuals identified as very religious contribute the least amount of money to environmental causes, while the unchurched believers are the most generous. The investigation also shows that among various dimensions of religiosity, only religious attendance is statistically significantly associated with environmental philanthropy. The effect of religious attendance is, however, negative for monetary contribution and positive for volunteerism. Finally, the contribution of money to religious organizations negatively associates with environmental giving, while donation to secular causes predicts a higher level of monetary giving to environmental organizations. Various implications are discussed.
Religion has a growing influence on parenting, and there remains a need to understand the influence of religious values in order to inform parents, and other professional bodies on how religious beliefs can influence child rearing practices. A systematic review was conducted to explore relevant articles during the time period 2004-2014. The aim of the review was to explore the effect of religion on parenting, and to establish effective ways in which religious parents can be guided in parenting. The findings show that religion does influence parenting, and that with intervention aimed at increasing specific skills, parenting practices may improve.
Weil die Religion Unglück und Ungerechtigkeit einen Sinn gibt, sollte die Religiosität die Lebenszufriedenheit steigern – Nomisierungshypothese. Weil die Lebenszufriedenheit eine optimistische Weltsicht mit sich bringt, sollte sie die Religiosität steigern – Optimismushypothese. Weiterhin sollte die Religiosität positiv von der Einprägung der Herkunftsreligion und negativ von der Reflexion über religiöse Fragen in der Jugend abhängen – Einprägungs- und Reflexionshypothese. Schließlich sollte die Lebenszufriedenheit vom Lebenserfolg in der gesamten Lebensmitte positiv abhängen – Erfolgshypothese. Diese Hypothesen werden in einer Wiederbefragung von 1301 ehemaligen 16jährigen Gymnasiasten im 30., 43. und 56. Lebensjahr kausal mit Regressionen und Kovarianzstrukturanalysen geprüft. Die Nomisierungshypothese wird nicht bestätigt, die Optimismushypothese nur schwach im 43. Lebensjahr. Religiosität wie Lebenszufriedenheit sind stabil, aber die Religiosität ist stabiler. Die Einprägungs-, Reflexions- und Erfolgshypothese werden bestätigt. Die Stabilität der Religiosität wie der Lebenszufriedenheit nimmt zu, der Einfluss des Lebenserfolgs auf die Lebenszufriedenheit nimmt ab.
Religion is an important determinant of social and economic attainment, but the mechanisms that underlie this relationship are not well understood. Early scholars recognized this connection, but their ideas do not adequately explain contemporary stratification patterns. Recent research documents robust empirical relationships between religion and material outcomes but has not yet begun to identify causes of these patterns. I fill this gap by providing a comprehensive, contemporary, theoretical explanation of the religion-inequality link that synthesizes ideas from early and more recent research. I draw on ideas from status attainment and life course research to develop a synthetic model that includes religion as both a background and a mediating component. I conclude by providing examples of implications of the model. These ideas improve understanding of the critical relationship between cultural orientation and material resources.
While most recent discussions of ''the battle over the family'' have focused on conflicts over gender roles, this study focuses on contemporary debates over childrearing practices. This work centers on the challenge to mainstream ''expert'' childrearing ideas posed by James Dobson and other conservative Protestant family advocates. Our study compares the recommendations of mainstream childrearing experts with those advanced by their conservative Protestant counterparts, with particular attention to four key areas: (1) long-term parenting goals; (2) the structure of parent-child relations; (3) the definition of parental roles; and (4) strategies of child discipline and punishment. Particular attention is devoted to the role of two key theological tenets-biblical ''literalism'' and belief that human nature is sinful - in legitimating the distinctive ''traditional'' childrearing practices endorsed by conservative Protestants. We conclude by discussing the implications of this research for subsequent work on conservative Protestantism and conflicts over family values and practices.
We use recently released, nationally representative data from the National Health Interview Survey—Multiple Cause of Death
linked file to model the association of religious attendance and sociodemographic, health, and behavioral correlates with
overall and cause-specific mortality. Religious attendance is associated with U.S. adult mortality in a graded fashion: People
who never attend exhibit 1.87 times the risk of death in the follow-up period compared with people who attend more than once
a week. This translates into a seven-year difference in life expectancy at age 20 between those who never attend and those
who attend more than once a week. Health selectivity is responsible for a portion of the religious attendance effect: People
who do not attend church or religious services are also more likely to be unhealthy and, conse-quently, to die. However, religious
attendance also works through increased social ties and behavioral factors to decrease the risks of death. And although the
magnitude of the association between religious attendance and mortality varies by cause of death, the direction of the association
is consistent across causes.
When experimental designs are infeasible, researchers must resort to the use of observational data from surveys, censuses, and administrative records. Because assignment to the independent variables of observational data is usually nonrandom, the challenge of estimating causal effects with observational data can be formidable. In this chapter, we review the large literature produced primarily by statisticians and econometricians in the past two decades on the estimation of causal effects from observational data. We first review the now widely accepted counterfactual framework for the modeling of causal effects. After examining estimators, both old and new, that can be used to estimate causal effects from cross-sectional data, we present estimators that exploit the additional information furnished by longitudinal data. Because of the size and technical nature of the literature, we cannot offer a fully detailed and comprehensive presentation. Instead, we present only the main features of methods that are accessible and potentially of use to quantitatively oriented sociologists. Sociology Version of Record
Although past research has long documented religion's salutary impact on adult health-related behaviors and outcomes, relatively little research has examined the relationship between religion and adolescent health. This study uses large, nationally representative samples of high school seniors to examine the relationship between religion and behavioral predictors of adolescent morbidity and mortality. Relative to their peers, religious youth are less likely to engage in behaviors that compromise their health (e.g., carrying weapons, getting into fights, drinking and driving) and are more likely to behave in ways that enhance their health (e.g., proper nutrition, exercise, and rest). Multivariate analyses suggest that these relationships persist even after controlling for demographic factors, and trend analyses reveal that they have existed over time. Particularly important is the finding that religious seniors have been relatively unaffected by past and recent increases in marijuana use.
The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960) is widely used to assess and control for response bias in self-report research. Several abbreviated versions of the Marlowe-Crowne scale have been proposed and adopted in psychology and medicine. In this article I evaluate the adequacy of 9 short forms using confirmatory factor analysis across 2 samples (combined N = 867). There was some evidence for the adequacy of different short forms, but model adequacy was not consistent across samples. Supplementary analyses revealed a multidimensional structure to the full Marlowe-Crowne scale and indicated that the apparent adequacy of model fit for some short forms might be a statistical artifact. Using the Marlowe-Crowne scale or its various short forms as a control for response bias is discouraged on empirical and conceptual grounds.
In the previous two decades there has been considerable progress in recognizing biases due to selectivity that are associated with the use of observational data to make causal inferences and in developing models to control for these biases statistically. Often there is a difference between estimates produced by models that attempt to control for selectivity and those that do not. Since a difference alone does not persuasively argue for one model over another, analysts typically rely on their a priori expectations of selectivity based on theory or intuition. Here we suggest that the analyst’s judgement about the appropriate analytical model may be informed by simple descriptive statistics and qualitative data. We use data on social networks collected in rural Kenya, since the analysis of networks is likely to raise questions of selectivity, and simple examples. Although we do not provide general rules for assessing when models that control for selectivity should be used, we conclude by recommending that analysts inform their judgement rather than rely on theory and intuition to justify controlling for selectivity. Although our data are particular, the implications of our approach are general, since a priori evaluations of the credibility of assumptions on which analytic models are based can be made in other settings and for other research questions.
We investigate the impact of family religious life on a vital human relationship: the mother-child bond. We develop a theoretical framework that explains the mechanisms through which family religious involvement influences perceptions of the quality of the mother-child relationship. This framework acknowledges multiple dimensions of religious involvement and the dynamics of involvement across the life course. Intergenerational panel data show that these various dimensions of family religious life have enduring effects on mothers' and children's perceptions of the quality of the mother-child relationship. The extent to which individuals internalize religion as an important part of their lives has broad implications for individuals' social relationships.
Four years after responding to a newspaper survey on attachment and close relationships, 146 women completed a follow-up survey on changes in their religious belief and experience during the interim period. Logistic regression analyses were used to predict Time 2 religion variables prospectively from adult attachment styles as measured at Time 1, statistically controlling for Time 1 religious commitment. Insecure-avoidant and insecure-anxious women, as measured at Time 1, were more likely than secure women to report having found a new relationship with God in the subsequent four-year period, and insecure-anxious women were more likely than both other groups to report a religious experience or conversion during that period. Results are interpreted in terms of religious beliefs serving a compensatory role for individuals lacking secure interpersonal attachments.
This investigation proposes and tests a conceptual model of adolescent religious belief and commitment which was informed by recent advances in measurement theory and scale constrution. The model is a partial conceptual replication of Cornwall's 1988 study of Mormon adult religious development. The model was examined by looking at the linear structural relations from the covariance matrix of relations in a large survey of adolescent religious attitudes and behavior conducted in late 1988 and early 1989. The proposed model was specified, modified, and re-specified. The final fit of the model to the data was quite good, especially when one considers that the survey used for this study was originally prepared for another purpose. Finally, the implications of this new model and additional research strategies and questions are suggested.
A long research tradition examines the relationships between religion and parental values, defined broadly as the traits that adults find most desirable in children. Two such traits have been of particular interest: "obedience" and "intellectual autonomy." We argue that contemporary Conservative Protestants are prone to endorse authoritarian parenting orientations disproportionately -- that is, to value obedience at the expense of autonomy. In addition, contrary to the thrust of some previous research, we hypothesize that Catholics tend to embrace more authoritarian child-rearing values than do non-Conservative Protestants and other Americans. OLS regression and structural equation models confirm that Conservative Protestants are especially supportive of obedience. However, they are no less enthusiastic than others about intellectual autonomy in children. Conservative Protestant valuation of obedience is linked with three theological positions: biblical literalism, belief that human nature is sinful, and punitive attitudes toward sinners. Hypotheses regarding Catholics are also confirmed, although the magnitude of Catholic effects is less pronounced. Several directions for future research on religious differences in parent-child relations are recommended.
Prior research has consistently reported a reliable relationship between intrinsic religiosity (IR) and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (SDS), a common measure of a socially desirable response tendency. However, it is unclear whether the relationship is produced by tendencies toward conscious impression management or unconscious self-deception. The present research was designed to disentangle the influence of impression management and self-deception inherently confounded in the SDS. We found that both tendencies toward impression management and self-deception are related to the leading measure of intrinsic religiosity. Implications for the measurement of intrinsic religiosity are discussed.
It has been proposed that adolescents are likely to change or maintain, expand or abandon their religious beliefs and practices because of pressure from parents or peers, because of cognitive development, or because of existential anxiety. This study proposes a social-cognitive model of change based on the concepts of anchoring and polarization. The sample consisted of 390 early, middle, and late adolescents who filled out a questionnaire assessing family demographics, religious background, beliefs, practices, and experience, existential questioning, and closeness to family and peers. Parents' religious affiliation and practices were positively related to all aspects of religiousness among early and middle adolescents, but only to practices and to decreased likelihood of change in the college-age group. Family closeness was also negatively associated with change. There was some evidence of peer influence on religious doubt and changes of faith. Existential concerns and SAT scores were positively related to change in older subjects only, but existential questioning seemed more likely to accompany change than to cause it.
This study explores contemporary regional variations in African American religious life. Building on a rich tradition of historical
and ethnographic research on the Black church, we contrast the religious environments that have traditionally prevailed in
the Black communities of the rural South and urban non-South. We emphasize regional variations in (1) the social role of religious
institutions, (2) the availability of alternative lifestyles and secular opportunities for status and resources, and (3) the
social norms and community expectations regarding church involvement A series of hypotheses regarding patterns and correlates
of church participation are then tested, using data from the National Survey of Black Americans. Findings indicate that historical
regional variations in African American religious life persist in the contemporary period. Moreover, our results suggest that
the rural southern Black church retains its traditional “semi-involuntary” character, and we discuss the broader theoretical
implications of this issue for future research in the sociology of religion.
I use an intergenerational data set that is uniquely suited to estimating the magnitude of religiosity inheritance. Interviews with 471 parents in 1980 and their adult offspring in 1992 address three related issues: (1) What are the effects of childhood, parental, and family influences on the religiosity of adult offspring? (2) What factors condition the ability of parents to transmit their religiosity? (3) How do the recent experiences of adult offspring modify earlier family influences on religiosity? The results suggest that three sets of variables aid the transmission of religiosity--parental religiosity, quality of the family relationship, and traditional family structure. One's religiosity is determined largely by the religiosity of one's parents. Parent's marital happiness, parent-child support, moderate strictness, and a working husband/nonworking wife increase the ability of parents to transmit their religious beliefs and practices. Although the recent experiences of adult offspring affect their religiosity, these experiences do not reduce the influence of parents and family context.
This paper documents an important web of reciprocal causal interrelationships between family structure and religious institutions and values. Religious beliefs had significant effects on family life in the past and are important factors in family structure and relationships today. Over the last two centuries family and household structure has been modified substantially, and the timing and pace of those family trends were influenced by religion and the changing place of religion in the social structure. At the same time family change has led to substantial modification in the teachings and policies of the churches, and the ways in which the churches responded to family change have had ramifications for the moral authority of the churches.
Most social scientists prefer to trace all religious phenomena to material causes and are quick to deny the possibility that religion is the real cause of anything. For example, many social historians deny that the Quakers founded the anti-slavery movement because of their religious concerns, claiming instead that, whether they knew it or not, the Quakers really opposed slavery in order to further their economic interests in an emerging capitalist environment. Enough! In this essay I first reveal the absurdity of three major efforts to reduce religious effects to materialism. Next, I show that four major historical events that have been attributed to material conditions are better understood as rooted in religious causes. Then I illustrate that religious doctrines differ in their capacity to produce effects by comparing the responses of early Christians and pagans to several great plagues. This leads to a preliminary discussion of factors influencing the effectiveness of religious doctrines, concluding that the most important factor has to do with the image of Gods on which the doctrines rest. Consequently, the sociology of religion rests upon a sociology of Gods.
Levels of voluntary association membership for 33 democratic countries are compared using data from surveys of nationally representative samples of adults from the 1990s. Four explanations of national differences in association involvement are identified and tested: economic development, religious composition, type of polity, and years of continuous democracy. The analyses consider total and working association memberships, both including and excluding unions and religious associations. Americans volunteer at rates above the average for all nations on each measure, but they are often matched and surpassed by those of several other countries, notably the Netherlands, Canada, and a number of Nordic nations, including Iceland, Sweden, and Norway. Hierarchical linear models show that voluntarism tends to be particularly high in nations that have: (1) multidenominational Christian or predominantly Protestant religious compositions, (2) prolonged and continuous experience with democratic institutions, (3) social democratic or liberal democratic political systems, and (4) high levels of economic development. With some exceptions for working memberships, these factors, both separately and in combination, are clearly important predictors of cross-national variation in voluntary association membership.
Recent research on conservative Protestantism suggests that religion has reemerged as an important predictor of childrearing attitudes and practices. This research has focused on the distinctive approach toward discipline among conservative Protestant parents. No study, however, has explored the links between conservative Protestantism and positive parental emotion work (physical and verbal expression of affection). I suggest, paradoxically, that this subculture is characterized by both strict discipline and an unusually warm and expressive style of parent-child interaction. I review parenting advice offered by conservative Protestant leaders, which encourages parents to engage in positive emotion work with their children. I then analyze data from the 1987-1988 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to determine if religious affiliation and theological conservatism are related to positive parental emotion work. I find that parents with conservative theological beliefs are more likely to praise and hug their children than are parents with less conservative theological views. Modest positive net effects of conservative Protestant affiliation are also found.
It has long been assumed in sociology that gender differences in religiousness are a product of differential socialization. Yet, there is little empirical support for this assumption. To address this gap in the literature, this study draws on an extensive investigation of the relationship between differential socialization and differential religiousness. Using the American General Social Surveys and the World Values Survey, this article analyzes the relationship between traditional gender attitudes and gender differences in religious beliefs and behavior. Surprisingly, these data show no relationship between the two. Therefore, a new set of hypotheses based on an alternative model involving risk preference is proposed. Results strongly support this new approach. Women are more religious than men to the extent that being irreligious constitutes risk-taking behavior. This model is able to predict differential religiousness in a wide variety of religious and cultural settings. Implications of these findings are discussed.
This was a study of 1,093 adolescents from six different public high schools, where the same integrated theoretical model of control and social learning theories fit the data on alcohol use, heavy alcohol consumption, use of marijuana, criminal behavior, sexual exploration, and suicidal thoughts. It was observed that the model explained significantly more variance in some of these forms of delinquency than in others, indicating only equivocal support for the deviance syndrome argument in the literature. This study also found that religiosity was a significant influence only on criminal behavior, whereas the feedback eifect of delinquency on religiosity was significant for all forms of delinquent behavior studied. The importance of this particular finding was discussed in relation to previous studies, since almost all prior research has used statistics that do not consider reciprocal eifects. In the present study, the reciprocal effects between religiosity and various forms of delinquency were analyzed with two-stage least squares regression.
The influence of religion on delinquency has been debated for more than 30 years, and yet, there remains a lack of consensus about the nature of this relationship. In an effort to bring some clarity to this area, this study assesses the religion-delinquency literature by using a methodological approach to reviewing a body of literature that is new to the social sciences—the systematic review (SR). This SR revealed that the literature is not disparate or contradictory, as previous studies have suggested. Religious measures are generally inversely related to deviance, and this is especially true among the most rigorous studies. As criminologists continue to examine the neglected topic of religion or what has been referred to as the forgotten factor, this article is a warning that measurement issues around a complex topic like religion, or even spirituality or forgiveness, is of paramount concern. The findings further indicate that future research on delinquency may gain explanatory power by incorporating religious variables in relevant theoretical models.
This study addresses two questions: Do religiously dissimilar couples argue more often than other couples? Are religious differences among partners associated with arguments concerning particular issues? We investigate these issues using data on 2,945 co-residing, first-time married couples from Wave 1 of the National Survey of Families and Households. Denominational homo/heterogamy, measured in several different ways, has little bearing on the frequency or types of marital disagreements. Men's religious attendance is inversely related to the overall frequency of disputes and to disagreements over housework, money, how time is spent, and sex, whereas women's attendance is not. Attendance (dis)similarities among partners are positively associated with the overall frequency of conflicts. Theological disparities between partners are linked with more frequent conflicts overall and also with disagreements over household labor and finances. Several implications and promising directions for future research are discussed.
Sociological interest in the material consequences of religious orientations died out following raging debates during the 1960s and 1970s, Using insider documents from conservative Protestant communities, we reopen this issue by examining how fundamentalist Protestant cultural orientations discourage educational pursuits. Using data from the Youth Parent Socialization Panel Study we demonstrate that fundamentalist beliefs and conservative Protestant affiliation both have significant and substantial negative influences on educational attainment above and beyond social background factors.
Reliability and validity of scores on the Religious Orientation Scale (ROS) are reviewed with respect to social desirability. ROS measures intrinsic religiousness (I; religion as an end unto itself) and extrinsic religiousness (E; religion as a means to some end, like friendship or solace). Development of the scale is briefly traced, including the modification of the E scale to include two subscales. Scores from the I scale have good internal consistency reliability (.83), but scores from E subscales (Social and Personal) have marginal internal consistency reliability (.63 and .64, respectively). I tends to correlate with desirable variables (mental health, altruism, religious commitment), and E correlates with that which is undesirable (prejudice, nonmarital sex). Meta-analysis revealed that I correlates .15 with social desirability but that E does not. Given the religious relevancy of social desirability measures, partialing out this variance is not recommended.
The internal consistency reliability of a five-item measure of socially desirable response set, the SDRS-5, was examined in two samples: 614 outpatients of medical providers and 3053 outpatients of medical and mental health providers. Alpha reliability estimates were 0.66 and 0.68, respectively. One-month test-retest reliability was 0.75 in a sample of 75 older adults. With appropriate caveats, we recommend the SDRS-5 for clinical investigators needing a very brief measure of socially desirable response set.
Developmental expressions of religion in the lives of youth extend from formal church attendance and ritual involvement to religious beliefs and knowledge, self-identity, and participation in youth groups. Little is known about developmental change in these activities and definitions among youth, especially in rural America, although they represent social capital for human development. Using multiple dimensions of religious development (church attendance, involvement in church activities, felt religiosity, religious identity), this panel study (7th-10th grades) investigated their developmental pathways over a 4-year period, giving particular attention to changing influences among farm and nonfarm rural youth. Data come from 365 White, two-parent families in the Iowa Youth and Families Project. Adolescents who have grown up on a farm have stronger ties to religious institutions than nonfarm youth, and they express stronger commitments to religious values. The correlates of religious change and continuity indicate that social identities and qualities of the parent-child relationship are important influences.
Gender differences in religiosity are well known. Past studies have consistently shown that females
tend to be more religious than males. We propose that gender differences in risk preferences are related to
differences in religiosity. Building on the classic concept of "Pascal's wager," we conceive of religious behavior
as risk averse and nonreligious behavior as risk taking. Analysis of data from the Monitoring the Future
data set shows that the addition of risk preference strongly attenuates gender differences in religiosity.
Risk preference also is a significant predictor of religiosity within each gender. Implications of this study
are discussed.
I review recent research published in academic journals concerning religious influences on several positive outcomes during adolescence: physical and emotional health, education, volunteering and political involvement, and family well-being. Though much less research exists on these outcomes when compared with risk behaviors such as drinking, drug use, and sexual activity, the high-quality studies that do exist point to modest positive influences of religious involvement. That is, more extensive religious involvement is generally associated with positive outcomes during adolescence. Certain religious affiliations (e.g., conservative Protestantism) can mitigate the otherwise positive influence of religious involvement on educational attainment and aspirations. On most other outcomes, few or no religious affiliation differences were noted. Finally, I also explore theories of religious influence during adolescence, and conclude with suggestions for the methodological and substantive development of research in this area.
More than 10 years ago the author proposed a contextual-interactional explanation of the fact that research done on the West Coast fails to find a relationship between religious commitment and delinquency, while studies done elsewhere invariably find a strong negative correlation. Unfortunately, because of various deficiencies, subsequent studies that claimed to test the contextual explanation have not done so - leaving the literature more confused than ever. In an effort to clarify matters, this paper carefully restates the contextual theory and then tests it on data from a very large survey of high school seniors. The results demonstrate the existence of a very potent contextual effect.
We provide mathematical tools to assist intuition about selection bias in concrete empirical analyses. These new tools do not offer a general solution to the selection bins problem; no method now does that. Rather, the techniques we present offer a new decomposition of selection bias. This decomposition permits an analyst to develop intuition and make reasoned judgments about the sources, severity, and direction of sample selection bins in a particular analysis. When combined with simulation results, also presented in this paper our decomposition of bias also permits a reasoned empirically-informed judgment of when the well-known two-step estimator of Heckman (1976, 1979) is likely to increase or decrease the accuracy of regression coefficient estimates. We also use simulations to confirm mathematical derivations.
This article formulates and tests theoretical hypotheses of the reciprocal causal relationships between the formation of cohabiting and marital unions and religious commitment and participation. The article uses data from a panel study of mothers and children to show that the religiosity of both mothers and children influences the cohabiting and marital behavior of children, with those from less religious families having higher rates of entering intimate coresidential unions and a tendency to substitute cohabitation for marriage. Analyses of the reciprocal influences of cohabitation and marriage on religiosity indicate that cohabitation decreases religiosity, while marriage leads to increased religious participation.
Since 1993, in response to a movement sponsored by the Southern Baptist Church, over 2.5 million adolescents have taken public "virginity" pledges, in which they promise to abstain from sex until marriage. This paper explores the effect of those pledges on the transition to first intercourse. Adolescents who pledge are much less likely to have intercourse than adolescents who do not pledge. The delay effect is substantial. On the other hand, the pledge does not work for adolescents at ail ages. Second, pledging delays intercourse only in contexts where there are some, but not too many, pledgers. The pledge works because it is embedded in an identity movement. Consequently, the pledge identity is meaningful only in contexts where it is at least partially nonnormative. Consequences of pledging are explored for those who break their promise. Promise breakers are less likely than others to use contraception at first intercourse.
Using two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent
Health, this study examines two sets of relationships between attitudes,
religiosity, and first sex among adolescents. First, I estimate the
effects of religiosity and attitudes about sex on the likelihood of
engaging in first sex. Then, I estimate the effect of having sex on
subsequent religiosity and attitudes. The findings are consistent with
past research that finds attitudes are a significant predictor of sexual
activity. The effect of religiosity on first sex is mediated by attitudes
about sex. Regarding reciprocal effects, having sex for the first time
has a significant effect on later attitudes, but not religiosity. This
study highlights the importance of going beyond traditional, recursive
models that consider only one side of a causal relationship.
A large body of empirical studies shows that religion often serves as a factor promoting positive, healthy outcomes in the lives of American adolescents. Yet existing theoretical explanations for these religious effects remain largely disjointed and fragmented. This article attempts to formulate a more systematic, integrated, and coherent account of religion's constructive influence in the lives of American youth, suggesting nine key factors (moral directives, spiritual experiences, role models, community and leadership skills, coping skills, cultural capital, social capital, network closure, and extra–community links) that cluster around three key dimensions of influence (moral order, learned competencies, and social and organizational ties).
Religious communities are known to instill standards of achievement in their young people, but this observation may not apply as well to disadvantaged youth and their culture. In this study, we explore whether religious involvement enables youth in low-income neighborhoods to stay on track in school, rather than falling behind. Using data from two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find that adolescents in low-income neighborhoods do not differ in their church attendance patterns from their peers in higher-income areas. However, their religious involvement is more likely to contribute to their academic progress than it is among youth in higher-income neighborhoods, even with adjustments for key risk and protective factors. This cross-level interaction involving youth church attendance shows a consistent relationship with several other measures of neighborhood disadvantage. We explore explanations for church attendance's uniquely positive effect in impoverished neighborhoods and its broader implications.
This paper analyzes religious socialization as it relates to schooling success. I propose and test a multilevel model of involvement in church activities as providing integration and motivation toward schooling success among metropolitan U.S. public high school sophomores. Results indicate that respondents' participation in church activities is related to heightened educational expectations, and that these more intensely religious students score higher on standardized math/reading tests, even while controlling for variables that often show religious effects to be spurious. The hypothesis that church involvement's effect varies by ecological context–it being a better predictor for students in poorer neighborhoods than average or wealthy neighborhoods–was not supported.
The Reiss Profile of Fundamental Goals and Motivational Sensitivities, a standardized psychological measure that assesses 15 fundamental desires, was administered to college students (n= 214) and to mental retardation service providers (n = 344), total N = 558, who rated themselves as “very,”“somewhat,” and “not” religious. How religious a person rated himself, call dereligiosity, was associated with high desire scores for honor and family, and with low desire scores for vengeanceand independence. The investigation provided evidence that the desire for dependence on God is unrelated to any desire for psychological weakness (submission to another person or political leader.)
Most theories about adolescent involvement in delinquent behaviors afford a prominent role to peers or friends and their behaviors. In this article I explore the age-graded role that actual friends’ behavior plays in explaining respondents’ theft and minor delinquency during middle and later adolescence, paying special attention to the potentially mitigating effects of social control measures. Results suggest that the influence of friends’ own reported theft and minor delinquency in explaining respondents’ behavior is relatively modest despite employing several different measures of friends’ behaviors. Family influences proved weaker than expected during middle adolescence. The influence of friends’ behavior was only modestly influential, and slightly more noticeable during later adolescence. The sheer amount of time spent with friends, on the other hand, was influential throughout adolescence. The results reinforce skepticism concerning the accuracy of self-reports about peer behavior, and suggest that perceptions of peers’ behavior may be more influential than the behaviors themselves.
This research has expanded our understanding of the determinants of adolescent sexuality in several directions. We have used a study of mothers and children to construct and estimate a model of the intergenerational transmission of sexual attitudes and behavior. With data collected from both mothers and children, we were able to proceed further than most past research and to consider both the attitudes and behaviors of mothers as reported by the mothers themselves. These data permitted an investigation of the determinants of maternal attitudes concerning adolescent sexuality as well as an examination of the influences of the attitudes and experiences of mothers on the attitudes, perceptions, and behavior of children. Obviously, limiting the study to white families prevents generalization of our findings to other subgroups of the population. The findings demonstrate the importance and relevance of parental and adolescent attitudes in understanding adolescent sexuality. Premarital sexuality is a salient issue to both young people and their parents. There are, however, very important and substantial differences in the attitudes of parents and children. On average, the attitudes of young people today are much less restrictive than those of their parents, reflecting either life cycle differences or the impact of social change. The intergenerational difference is recognized by young people themselves and probably affects the ability of parents to assist their maturing children in adjusting to and dealing with their sexuality--a difficulty likely to be reflected in the relative lack of success sexually active young people have in preventing pregnancy. Our findings also add to the research literature in demonstrating that although children, on average, have more permissive attitudes than their parents, the attitudes of individual parents tend to be reflected in the attitudes of individual children. Children whose mothers have less restrictive attitudes have, on average, less restrictive attitudes themselves. Further, the attitudes of mothers are also reflected in the behavior of their children, so on average, mothers with more permissive attitudes have children who are more sexually active. The influence of maternal attitudes, however, is stronger for children's attitudes than for their behavior. Of course, variability in children's attitudes and behavior--and even their perceptions of maternal attitudes--can only be partially explained by the attitudes of their mothers; but presumably, if the attitudes of other important family members, including fathers and siblings, were known, the prediction of adolescent attitudes would improve.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
3 generalizations seem well established concerning the relationship between subjective religion and ethnic prejudice: (a) On the average churchgoers are more prejudiced than nonchurchgoers; (b) the relationship is curvilinear; (c) people with an extrinsic religious orientation are significantly more prejudiced than people with an intrinsic religious orientation. With the aid of a scale to measure extrinsic and intrinsic orientation this research confirmed previous findings and added a 4th: people who are indiscriminately proreligious are the most prejudiced of all. The interpretations offered are in terms of cognitive style. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The volume and quality of research on what we term the religion-health connection have increased markedly in recent years. This interest in the complex relationships between religion and mental and physical health is being fueled by energetic and innovative research programs in several fields, including sociology, psychology, health behavior and health education, psychiatry, gerontology, and social epidemiology. This article has three main objectives: (1) to briefly review the medical and epidemiologic research on religious factors and both physical health and mental health; (2) to identify the most promising explanatory mechanisms for religious effects on health, giving particular attention to the relationships between religious factors and the central constructs of the life stress paradigm, which guides most current social and behavioral research on health outcomes; and (3) to critique previous work on religion and health, pointing out limitations and promising new research directions.
The objective of this study was to investigate the contribution of ethnicity (African American vs European/other ancestry), family religious affiliation, religious involvement, and religious values, to risk of alcohol and cigarette use in adolescent girls; and to estimate genetic and shared environmental effects on religious involvement and values. Telephone interviews were conducted with a sample of female like-sex twin pairs, aged 13-20 (n = 1687 pairs, including 220 minority pairs), as well as with one or both parents of twins aged 11-20 (n = 2111 families). These data, together with one-year follow-up twin questionnaire data, and two-year follow-up parent interview data, were used to compare ethnic differences. Proportional hazards regression models and genetic variance component models were fitted to the data. Despite higher levels of exposure to family, school and neighborhood environmental adversities, African American adolescents were less likely to become teenage drinkers or smokers. They showed greater religious involvement (frequency of attendance at religious services) and stronger religious values (eg belief in relying upon their religious beliefs to guide day-to-day living). Controlling for religious affiliation, involvement and values removed the ethnic difference in alcohol use, but had no effect on the difference in rates of smoking. Religious involvement and values exhibited high heritability in African Americans, but only modest heritability in EOAs. The strong protective effect of adolescent religious involvement and values, and its contribution to lower rates of African American alcohol use, was confirmed. We speculate about the possible association between high heritability of African American religious behavior and an accelerated maturation of religious values during adolescence.