Poster #97 - Keeping the Faith Versus Losing my Religion: Family Correlates of African American Adolescents’ Spirituality Profiles

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Adolescence is a key time for spiritual growth and development (Good & Willoughby, 2008). Adolescents’ spiritual development is influenced by a number of factors including parental values and behavior and the general context of the home environment (Jennings et al., 2014). The present study examined parental and family correlates of African American adolescents’ religiosity profiles.
The study sample included 355 youth (> 90% African American; 54% female; M age = 12.1, SD = 1.6 years) who participated in a 4-time point study of stress and adjustment. Analyses build on a recent study (reference removed for review) that used Latent Class Growth Analyses to identify profiles of change in intrinsic religiosity over early and middle adolescence. Analyses revealed three distinct profiles in each developmental period: high and steady; moderate with declines over the study period; and low and steady (see Figure 1). For the current project we conducted a series of repeated measures Analyses of Covariance (ANCOVAs) with the profiles as the predictor variable and parental and family variables including maternal religious attendance, religious commitment, and religious coping; maternal hostility; adolescents’ felt acceptance from mother; and positive and negative family emotional climate as the outcome variables. We controlled for adolescent grade, gender, household income, and maternal education and examined between-subjects’ effects to determine differences in variables by religiosity profile, which we followed with planned contrasts comparing youth in the “high and steady” profile to youth in the other profiles. We examined profile X time interactions to determine if changes in outcome differed by profile at different rates or patterns.
In no case were there multivariate effects or profile X time interactions, indicating that that the parental and family variables we examined were stable over time and the religiosity profiles did not vary with them differentially. Between-profile differences were significant for maternal religious attendance [F(2, 231 = 7.69, p = .001)], religious commitment [F(2, 231 = 9.53, p < .001)], religious coping [F(2, 226) = 6.44, p = .002], felt acceptance from mother [F(2, 228 = 5.01, p = .007)], and negative emotional climate in the family [F(2, 233 = 4.25, p = .015)], but not for maternal hostility or positive emotional climate in the family. Planned contrasts indicated that youth in the “high and steady” profile had mothers who attended religious services more often and expressed more religious commitment and coping than mothers in the “decliner” or “low and steady” profiles. Additionally, youth in the “high and steady” profile felt more accepted by their mothers than youth in either of the other two profiles. Mothers of youth in the “high and steady” profile reported a less negative emotional climate in the home compared to mothers of youth in the “decliner” profile. Table 1 presents the descriptive information for these outcome variables by profile, adjusted for the covariates in the model.
These data confirm the importance of parents’ own values and behavior, their relationship with their children, and the family climate as important contributors to adolescents’ spiritual trajectories.

Authors

• Wendy Kliewer, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Presenting Author

• Joana Salifu Yendork, University of Ghana
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anna W Wright, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Non-Presenting Author

• David W Sosnowski, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melissa Washington-Nortey, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristina McGuire, Virginia Commonwealth University
  Non-Presenting Author