Longitudinal Relations between Adolescent Religiousness and Self-regulation

• In Event: 2-034 - Religiosity as a Multifaceted Resource for Positive Youth Development among Diverse Youth

Integrative Statement

Evidence is mounting suggesting religion is a salient source of self-regulation or self-control (McCullough & Carter, 2013). Much of the research on religiousness and self-regulation among adolescents has examined self-regulation as a mediator linking religiousness to youth outcomes. For instance, religiousness may protect youth from health-risk behaviors (e.g., substance use; Holmes & Kim-spoon, 2016), harmful media (e.g., pornography; Hardy, Steelman, Coyne, & Ridge, 2013), and aggression (Shepperd, Miller, & Smith, 2015) by fostering self-regulation. Further, religiousness may promote physical health (Holmes & Kim-spoon, 2016) and psychological well-being (Schnitker, Houltberg, Dyrness, & Redmond, 2017) by nurturing self-regulation. However, little is known about interrelations between religious development and self-regulation formation. In fact, to our knowledge no study yet has focused on understanding these processes longitudinally. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to examine dynamic relations between religiousness and self-regulation across adolescence.
Participants were 500 U.S. adolescents. Although data were collected by annual waves, we restructured the data by age in years, and thus analyzed data from ages 13-20. Religiousness was measured using single items for religious worship service attendance and prayer, as well as three items assessing religious importance. Self-regulation was measured using a 13-item scale (Novak & Clayton, 2001) capturing behavioral, cognitive, and emotional regulation. Items for religious importance and for three subscales of self-regulation were averaged to create the respective composite scores. We conducted analyses by overall religiousness and self-regulation, as well as by the three dimensions of religiousness (attendance, prayer, and importance) and the three dimensions of self-regulation (behavioral, cognitive, and emotional).
The analyses were conducted using latent growth curve modeling in Mplus. First, we identified the best-fitting and most parsimonious univariate growth models for each variable. The final models for religious attendance, overall self-regulation, and the three dimensions of self-regulation were latent-basis (where all slope loadings were freely estimated but the first and last, thus allowing for non-linearity), while the models for overall religiousness, prayer, and religious importance were linear. Religiousness (overall and for all dimensions) decreased over time, while self-regulation (overall and for all dimensions) increased over time. Second, we estimated bivariate growth models for all pairings of the study variables (religiousness and self-regulation overall and by dimension; see Table 1). Change in overall religiousness was positively correlated with change in overall self-regulation (r = .24, p = .001). Thus, teens who decreased less (or increased more) in religiousness increased more (or decreased less) in self-regulation. The same pattern was also true for some combinations of dimensions of religiousness and self-regulation, but not others. Specifically, relations tended to be stronger for prayer and religious importance and for cognitive and emotional self-regulation.
In conclusion, the present study provides evidence for dynamic relations between religious development and self-regulation formation. Private aspects of religiousness, such as prayer and religious importance, may be the most salient dimension of religion relevant to self-regulation. Further, religiousness may have the greatest impact on cognitive and emotional aspects of self-regulation, and less so on behavioral regulation.

Authors

• Sam Hardy, Brigham Young University
  Presenting Author

• Chayce Baldwin, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jungmeen Kim-Spoon, Virginia Tech
  Non-Presenting Author