Religiosity, self-control, and antisocial behavior: Religiosity as a promotive and protective factor

a r t i c l e i n f o Three hypotheses with the potential to provide information on the role of religiosity as a promotive and protective factor in early adolescence were tested. Adolescents (N = 166, M age = 13 years, 49% female, 49% European American, 45% African American) and mothers reported their own personal importance of religion and the frequency of their attendance of religious services. Greater mother importance and attendance was associated with greater adolescent importance and attendance. Mother importance was indirectly linked to adolescent antisocial behavior through adolescent importance. Less adolescent importance and attendance were associated with low self-control and low self-control was associated with more antisocial and rule-breaking behavior. Adolescent importance also moderated the links between low self-control and antisocial and rule-breaking behavior such that low levels of self-control were more strongly associated with more antisocial and rule-breaking behavior among adolescents reporting low religious importance compared to adolescents reporting high religious importance. Introduction In both adolescence and adulthood, greater religiosity is associated with more positive health-relevant outcomes (e. In adolescence, greater religiosity has been consistently linked with lower levels of involvement in a wide range of undesirable behaviors including alcohol, tobacco, and drug use, delinquency, and risky sexual behavior has been made toward understanding the processes linking religiosity with less problem behavior or toward understanding whether religiosity also functions as a protective factor. The current study tests three hypotheses to better understand whether and how religiosity functions as a promotive and protective factor in early adolescence. Religiosity as a promotive factor To date much of the theorizing about religion and health has been based on the direct association between religiosity and health-relevant outcomes, emphasizing, for example, that high levels of religiosity are linked to better well-being (e. Poll, 2003) and that highly religious individuals live longer than less religious individuals (e. Thoresen, 2000). These effects are consistent with religion functioning as a general promotive factor associated with desirable outcomes. The search for processes underlying religion as a promotive factor focuses on identifying mediators of the association between religiosity and outcomes. Geyer and Baumeister (2005) and McCullough and Willoughby (2009) identified self-control as a psychological process that may explain the link between religion and behavioral outcomes. In psychological research, self-control refers to a person's capacity to override and inhibit socially unacceptable and undesirable impulses and to regulate one's behaviors, thoughts and emotions (Baumeister, conceptualize …