Parent and Peer Contexts of Religious Deconversion During Adolescence and Young Adulthood

• In Event: Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Topic - Moral Development

Abstract

Deconversion or disaffiliation is becoming much more prevalent in recent generations, notably during the developmental periods of adolescence and young adulthood (Hardy & Longo, 2020). While multiple methodologies and approaches have studied trajectories of religious development, most studies of deconversion have been qualitative (Hardy & Longo, 2020). This study seeks to add to the quantitative literature on deconversion, building on prior research regarding youth religious development. Parental religiosity is one of the strongest predictors of child religiosity (Smith and Denton 2005), such that high parental religiosity positively predicts higher levels of youth religiosity, as well as negatively predicting declines in child religious attendance over time (Vaidyanathan, 2011). Other research has found similar patterns linking peer religiosity to youth religiosity (French et al., 2014). As such, we similarly hypothesized and wanted to explore if parent and peer religiosity predicted deconversion. Data for this study came from four waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR; Smith & Denton, 2005), a nationally representative longitudinal study of 3,290 teenagers. The dependent variable, deconversion, was operationalized as those who identified with a religion for at least two waves, but later identified as not religious. The six independent variables (all assessed at Wave 1) looked at the parent, family, and peer religious contexts. Two variables measured the parental context: parental religious attendance, ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (more than once a week), and parental religious salience (how important faith was to daily living), which ranged from 1 (not important at all) to 6 (extremely important). Similarly, two variables measured the family context: participants were asked if their family regularly prayed surrounding dinner time, to which they either replied yes (1) or no (0), and were also asked about the frequency of family religious discussions, which ranged from 1 (never) to 6 (every day). Two variables likewise measured the peer context: the number of close friends who identified as the same religion as the participant (from 0-5), and the number of close friends that the participant had discussed religion with (from 0-5). First, bivariate correlation revealed all variables in the parent, family, and peer contexts were negatively correlated with deconversion. Thus, higher parent religiosity, family religious practices, and peer religious connection was associated with less likelihood of later deconversion. Second, we ran a logistic regression including all six independent variables as predictors of deconversion. In the regression context, parental religious attendance and religious salience, family religious discussions, and friends with same religious beliefs, accounted for unique variance in deconversion, in which those in more religious contexts had lower odds of disaffiliating. On the other hand, family prayer and religious discussions with friends no longer significantly related to deconversion. Further, parenting and family predictors were more strongly linked to deconversion than peer predictors. This study extends previous research by exploring deconversion processes in a nationally representative longitudinal sample, and highlighting the importance of parent religiosity, family religious practices, and peer contexts during early adolescence in predicting later deconversion during adolescence and young adulthood.

Authors

• Justin Hendricks, Brigham Young University
  Presenting Author

• Dorian Hatch, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sam A Hardy, Brigham Young University
  Non-Presenting Author