15 Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Adolescents' Religiosity and Family Orientation

This chapter explores cultural and individual religious roots of adolescents' family orientation on the basis of multilevel analyses with data from 17 cul­ tural groups. Religion and the family are seen as intertwined social insti­ tutions. The family as a source of social support has been identified as an important mediator of the effects of religiosity on adolescent developmental outcomes. The results of the current study show that religiosity was related to different aspects of adolescents' family orientation (traditional family values. value of children. and family future orientation). and that the culture-level effects of religiosity on family orientation were stronger than the individual­ level effects. At the cultural level. socioeconomic development added to the effect of religiosity. indicating that societal affluence combined with nonre­ ligious secular orientations is linked to a lower family orientation. especially with regard to traditional family values. The authors suggest that individual religiosity may be of special importance for adolescents' family orientation in contexts where religiosity has lost some Significance but religious traditions are still alive and can be (re-)connected to. Religion and the family represent closely linked social institutions. Both function through psychological processes that may vary during develop­ ment and across cultures. Religious socialization takes place in families. and religions in turn can influence family life. The focus of the current chapter is on the relation between adolescents' religiosity and their family orientation. Taking a cross-cultural and multilevel perspective. we will both theoretically and empirically explore three major questions: How are adolescents similar or different across cultures with respect to the impor­ tance of religious beliefs and family orientation? How are adolescents' 342 Mayer and Trommsdorff religiosity and family orientation related in different cultures? And, how is nation-level religiosity as well as nation-level socioeconomic develop_ ment related to adolescents' family orientation? We deal with these ques­ tions on the basis of data from the cross-cultural research project "Value of Children and Intergenerational Relations" (Trommsdorff & Nauck, 2005). Adolescence is a sensitive period for religious and spiritual develop_ ment. Because of the intermediate position between childhood and adult­ hood and the related insecurities, adolescents' identity development comes with an intense striving for meaning and a need for autonomy and relat­ edness (Erikson, 1968; Youniss & Smollar, 1985). Therefore, adolescents often engage in religious and spiritual exploration (Elkind, 1964; Good & Willoughby, 2008; Oser, Scarlett, & Bucher, 2006). According to Elkind (1999), adolescents (especially those in Western societies) prefer an intense personal religiosity and consider the formal aspects of religiousness (e.g., regular church attendance) to be less important (see also Lopez, Huynh, & Fuligni, 201l). Therefore, our focus here is on adolescents' subjective importance subscribed to religious beliefs. Numerous cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have shown that religiosity is associated with better physical and mental health (George, Ellison, & Larson, 2002; Hackney & Sanders, 2003). For adolescents, Wagener, Furrow, King, Leffert, and Benson (2003) showed that religios­ ity was related to lower risk-taking, successful coping, and higher proso­ cial values and behavior (see also French, Eisenberg, Sallquist, & Purwono, Chapter 6 in this volume). Similar results with respect to moral outcomes (e.g., empathic concern and altruism) were reported by King and Furrow (2004) and Youniss, McLellan, and Yates ( 1999). As mechanisms or mediators of these effects, some studies have identi­ fied religion's positive influences on social support, community inclusion, and on a stable sense of identity (Cohen, 2002; George et aI., 2002; Steger & Frazier, 2005; Wagener et aI., 2003). Critical voices argue that religion is not the only source of these (secular) mediators and suggest that researchers focus on the mediators themselves rather than on religion per se (Funder, 2002). On the contrary, Pargament (2002b) points to the unique effects of religion emphasizing the "sacred" as a powerful defining feature of religion. Furthermore, the kind of religious practice and religiosity also play a role: whereas an intrinsically motivated religiosity has been positively linked to well-being, an imposed and unexamined religiosity has been negatively linked (Pargament, 2002a) (see also Kornadt, Chapter 2 in this volume; Cross-Cultural Perspectives 343 Saroglou, Chapter 17 in this volume). Whether religion's effects on adoles­ cent development are unique or mediated, there is no doubt that the family as an essential source of social support plays an important role for the link between religiosity and adolescent developmental outcomes (Regnerus & Burdette, 2006; Sabatier, Mayer, Friedlmeier, Lubiewska, & Trommsdorff, 2011). Therefore, the focus of the current chapter is to understand the rela­ tions between adolescent religiosity and their family orientation. Before dealing more closely with this issue, the necessity of a cross-cultural per­ spective will be emphasized. Most studies on psychological functions of religiosity are based on Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD, see Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010) samples. The question arises as to what extent (if at all) results based on these samples can be generalized to adolescents from different cultural contexts. In spite of growing global connections through the Internet along with the dissemination of main­ stream (North American) pop music and movies that have arguably led to a universal popular youth culture (Dasen, 2000; ]ensen, 2003; Schlegel, 2000), cross-cultural and cross-ethnic studies on several aspects of adoles­ cents' lives show that large cultural differences still prevail (Brown, Larson, & Saraswathi, 2002; Puligni, Tseng, & Lam, 1999; Mayer & Trommsdorff, 2010). Furthermore, a globalized youth culture in modernizing, but in large part still traditional, cultural contexts like India or China may be restricted to adolescents from urban areas and a Western-oriented middle­ class youth. Even the concept of "emerging adulthood" may only hold for Western developmental contexts (Arnett, 2010). Few studies shed light on the function of religiosity for adolescent devel­ opment across cultures. In samples of African American and European­ American llth graders, Markstrom (1999) found that various forms of religious involvement were associated with indicators of ego strength and psychosocial maturity. In a recent study comparing the mediating role of adolescents' family orientation in the relation between religiosity and life satisfaction across four Christian cultures, Sabatier et al. (20ll) found that religiosity was indirectly related to adolescent life satisfaction via family orientation across all four cultures (France, Germany, Poland, and the United States). In a study of U.S. adolescents with Latin American, Asian, and European backgrounds, Lopez, Huynh, and Fuligni (201l) showed that regardless of religious and cultural background, changes in adolescents' religious identity were closely related to changes in their fam­ ily identity. 344 Mayer and Trommsdorff Researchers have also taken cross-cultural perspectives on the role of religion for the study of value orientations (see Bond, Lun, & Li, Chapter 5 in this volume; Schwartz, Chapter 4 in this volume). Values represent stan­ dards of behavior ("oughts" and "shoulds") that are transmitted by various social institutions, such as religion. Early studies on the relation between religiosity and values found that religious participants reported a higher importance of values like salvation, forgiveness, and obedience than did nonreligious participants, who reported a higher importance of indepen_ dence, pleasure, and intellectualism (Rokeach, 1969). Later studies using the Schwartz' circumplex model of values tended to find similar associations (e.g., Schwartz & Huismans, 1995). In a meta-analysis, Saroglou, Delpierre, and Dernelle (2004) corroborated these findings across 21 samples from 15 countries and three denominations (Christians, Jews, and Muslims): higher religiosity was positively related to values supporting the preservation of the social order and to prosocial values whereas it was negatively related to values promoting openness to change and autonomy as well as to hedonis­ tic values. These cross-cultural relations between religiosity and pro social, as well as socially conservative values, are related to the main question of this chapter: what is the relation between adolescents' religiosity and their family orientation? Religion has been identified as a "propagator" of family ideologies (Pearce & Thornton, 2007, p. 1227) which are in turn related to family-relevant behaviors like the decision to have children (Barber, 2000). The link between religiosity and family orientation is an understudied field (Pankhurst & Houseknecht, 2000) and is especially important during the transition to adulthood (Pearce & Thornton, 2007). We understand family orientation as a construct encompassing traditional family values, values of children, and the importance of a future family. This broad definition allows us to study the effects of religiosity on several aspects of family ori­ entation including normative and subjective emotional aspects, and general as well as personal future-oriented aspects. The following empirical portion of this chapter consists of three sections. First, we analyze cross-cultural similarities and differences in adolescents' religiosity and their family orientation. Second, we focus on the relation between religiosity and family orientation within different cultures and on a potentially moderating role of culture-level religiosity for this relation. The third section is concerned with culture-level effects of religiosity and of a nation's socioeconomic development on adolescents' family orientation. In all three sections we introduce the respective topic theoretically and sub­ sequently present results of cross-cultural and multilevel analyses from the Value of Children Study. Cross-Cultural Perspectives 345 Adolescents' Religiosity and Family Orientation across Cultures: The Roles of Secularization and Modernization The cross-cultural study of the psychology of religion is an understudied field (Tarakeshwar, Stanton, & Pargament, 2003). In this section, we will first discuss the phenomenon of secularization and the related topic of the transmission of religioSity in different cultural contexts. Then we will dis­ cuss to what degree modernization processes affect the significance of the family across cultural contexts. Subsequently, we will introduce the sample of the Value of Children Study and present cross-cultural empirical findings on adolescents' religiosity and family orientation. Decline of Religiosity: The Secularization Thesis The question of a decline of religiosity and a rise of secular orientations is quite controversial (e.g., see Halman & Pettersson, 2006). In a large­ scale longitudinal study of religion and its intergenerational transmission, Bengtson and colleagues analyzed the changes of religious beliefs, values, and practices across three decades and three connected generations in the United States (Bengtson, Copen, Putney, & Silverstein, 2009). From 1971 to 2000 there was a cbnsiderable decline of reported religious affiliation for all three generations. This result is in line with the phenomenon of sec­ ularization, reflecting a continuous decline of religioSity in Western Europe and the English-speaking world during the second half of the 20th cen­ tury (Inglehart & Baker, 2000). Secularization has been described as result­ ing from modernization, economic development, and individualization. Though it is acknowledged that traditional religious values can persist to some degree (Inglehart & Baker, 2000; Inkeles, 1998), some authors assume that sooner or later all cultures will overcome traditional religious values and come to prefer secular-rational and autonomous self-expressive values ("human development sequence;' see Inglehart & Welzel, 2005). This view has not been unchallenged. Georgas (2006) argues that the thrust of modernization itself is based on religious and cultural values that developed out of Calvinist Protestantism. In a similar vein, Eisenstadt ( 1973) postulates that the development of transcendental religions during the axial age (Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and later Islam) are the basis of later modernization processes. According to this view, axial civilizations are characterized by a tension between tran­ scendental and worldly orientations. This tension leads to the conception of the world and human beings as in need of redemption and correction or improvement. Instead of a single modernity as implicated by Inglehart's 346 Mayer and Trommsdorff model, Eisenstadt (2006) suggests the presence of multiple modernities based on each culture's unique way of dealing with this tension. In a study of Christian societies with data from the International Social Survey Programme, Hollinger and Haller (2009) conclude that although traditional forms of religion have declined considerably in some cultures religion continues to play an important role in the public sphere as well as h� private life in other cultures. 'They argue that the worldviews and doctrines of Protestantism have led to a greater "disenchantment of the world" (p. 281) and to a subsequent decline of religiosity as compared to Catholicism and Orthodoxy (see also Georgas, 2006). Furthermore, bureaucratic state churches (as in some Western European countries) and Communism in Eastern Europe were related to lower religiosity. 'The historical significance of religion in the United States owing to an emphasis on religious freedom (in contrast with Europe) has possibly contributed to the relatively small decline in the importance of religion in this country. A declining impor­ tance of religion has also been accorded to socioeconomic development: economic prosperity and the rise of welfare state provisions can buffer exis­ tential risks related to religious needs. However, there is no direct link: in a cross-cultural study, Georgas, van de Vijver, and Berry (2004) showed that religion and economic prosperity (at the cultural level) were related to psy­ chological variables in different and partly contrasting ways. Transmission of Religiosity: Family and Society Closely related to the issue of religious decline or persistence is the ques­ tion of how religiosity and related value orientations are transmitted from generation to generation within a specific cultural context (see also Knafo, Daniel, Gabay, Zilber, & Shir, Chapter 16 in this volume). 'This question has been studied from a socialization theoretical perspective focusing on transmission processes between generations from the same family (verti­ cal transmission) and from a cohort approach focusing on the influence of peers, culture, and the zeitgeist (i.e., the general intellectual and political climate within a nation or cultural group) (horizontal and oblique trans­ mission). How do these transmission processes contribute to the decline versus stability of religion in different cultural contexts? According to Boyatzis, Dollahite, and Marks (2006) the factor with the greatest impact on children's religious development is the socialization experience within the family. In their three-generation longitudinal study, Bengtson et al. (2009) found that parents as well as grandparents substan­ tially influenced several aspects of their offspring's religiosity. 'Thus, for most adolescents, the importance of a specific religious belief is strongly Cross-Cultural Perspectives 347 influenced by their family 's religious beliefs (see also Regnerus, Smith, & Smith, 2004; Trommsdorff, 2009a). Kelley and De Graaf (1997) analyzed the transmission of religious beliefs by way of parental socialization in 15 nations in the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). 'The focus was on the moderating influence of the cultural religious environment on how religious beliefs are transmitted across generations. 'The results showed that after controlling for a nation's level of economic deVelopment and for exposure to Communism, "people living in religious nations will, in pro­ portion to the religiosity of their fellow-citizens, acquire more orthodox beliefs than otherwise similar people living in secular nations" (p. 639). Furthermore, in more secular nations, parents' religiosity had a greater impact on children's religiosity, and the national religious context had a smaller impact than in more religious nations. In turn, parents' religiosity was less related to child religiosity in cultures with a high normativity of religion whereas the national context had a greater effect in these cultures. Thus, the relative importance of vertical and horizontal! oblique transmis­ sion processes depends on the cultural context. In cultures where most people are religious and where one specific religion prevails, the family is only one among many socialization agents for religious beliefs. In these societies, peers, schools, the media, and religious institutions contribute to religious socialization and enculturation, building on the highly norma­ tive and shared collective notion of religious truth. As Baumeister (2002) notes, It is easier for an individual to maintain religious faith if he or she lives in a community where everyone else holds that same faith [and] it is far more diffi­ cult to maintain one's own faith while living amid people who do not share your faith and who instead either subscribe to other, alternative religious beliefs or reject'religious belief altogether (p. 166). Differential transmission processes depending on the nation-level reli­ gious context thus may reinforce a culture's tendency to either change to more secular values (as in the case of a plurality of religious beliefs and/or an already lowered normativity of religion) or to keep religious values at a constantly high level (as in the case of a high normativity and exclusivity of one specific religion). Taken together, the above theorizing lets us expect substantial cross-cultural differences in the religiosity of adolescents from cultures that differ with regard to the normativity of religion, economic development, and basic value orientations. Because values regarding the family are deeply rooted in many religious traditions, a parallel decline of family orientation can be expected for cul­ tures where religious beliefs are on the decline. Indeed, modernization 348 Mayer and ommsdorlf theoretical approaches support this argument, but they are not uncon_ tended, as will be shown in the next section. Modernization and Family Change Discussion about the decline of the family can be traced back to the French Revolution, which disturbed the equilibrium of the traditional extended family system and patriarchal authority (according to Auguste Comte, as cited in Georgas, 2006). Similarly, Parsons ( 1949) argued that the industrial revolution required the formation of a nuclear family that became mOre and more alienated from its extended kin network. There are manifold indi­ cators of this decline continuing today: an increasing number of single­ parent families; an increasing divorce rate; an increase of step-families and patchwork families; and, most of all, a declining birth rate (Georgas, 2006; Goode, 1963). The post-nuclear family (Popenoe, 1988) is characterized by a further decreasing family size, fewer joint activities and less quality con­ tact between parents and children, and reduced contact with collateral kin (e.g., aunts, nephews, etc.), but more contact with grandparents. According to Bengtson (2001), this increasing importance of multigenerational bonds may signify a qualitative change in family solidarity structures rather than a decline of the family. Pankhurst and Houseknecht (2000) argue that in spite of the manifold changes that religion and the family undergo in the modern era, both institutions are not on the decline but still vital and important in most societies, raising doubts with regard to the general validity of the secularization thesis and the thesis of family decline. Whereas it is commonly agreed that the above-mentioned indicators reflect a weakening of familial bonds in modernized Western cultures, the implications for modernizing non-Western cultures remain unclear. In many modernizing societies, a trend toward a separate residence for the nuclear conjugal family can be observed. However, can we also observe a functional nucleation, or do the relationships to the extended kin net­ work stay intact (Inkeles, 1998)? In India, for example, the extended family members are still psychologically and normatively connected to each other despite being separated by large distances (Mishra, Mayer, Trommsdorff, Albert, & Schwarz, 2005; Sinha, 1991). Yang (1996) suggests that psychological change in modernization is restricted to those cultural and psychological characteristics that are incom­ patible with a modern way of life. The question is here whether these charac­ teristics include a decline in personal closeness between family members and kin as proposed by classical modernization theory (Inkeles & Smith, 1974). Kagitcibasi (2007) contends that despite socioeconomic development, a shift towards lower emotional closeness among family members is not taking Cross-Cultural Perspectives 349 place in modernizing cultures. Rather, she postulates a shift toward a family model of emotional interdependence in these cultures, characterized by con­ tinuing emotional interdependence but declining material interdependence (and rising personal autonomy). Studies directly testing these assumptions are rare. In a large study of families in 30 cultures, Georgas, Berry, van de Vijver, Kagitcibasi, and Poortinga (2006) examined cross-cultural differ­ ences on a number of measures (family values, family roles, etc.) both from the perspective of the ecocultural framework (e.g., Georgas et al., 2004) and from Kagitcibasi's theory of family change. Results showed that with socio­ economic development of a culture, family values became less traditional, family networks and emotional cohesion less strong, and family roles less expressive, in line with the expectations of the ecocultural framework. The expectations with regard to Kagitcibasi's model were also partly confirmed: nuclear family relationships were close in modernizing cultures and even in Western individualistic cultures, suggesting a trend to the emotionally inter­ dependent family model. Thus, modernization in terms of socioeconomic development does have a weakening effect on the significance of the family in society, but more traditional (hierarchical and patriarchal) aspects of the fam­ ily seem to be more affected than the importance of the family in general (see also Trommsdorft: 2009b). A more direct test of the theory of family change was carried out recently by Mayer, Trommsdorff, Kagitcibasi, and Mishra (2012). Using mothers' and adolescents' data from three cultures in the Value of Children Study (Germany, Turkey, and India), the authors identified three patterns of family values that could be related to the three ideal-typical family models suggested by Kagitcibasi (2007). Furthermore, the cross-cultural and cross-generational differences with regard to these family value patterns were in line with predictions based on the theory of family change. To conclude, both socioeconomic development and the role of religion have important implications for the role of the family in a culture. As previ­ ously discussed, however, socioeconomic development cannot be equated with religious decline/secularization. In this sense, religious traditions may be an important factor for canalizing changes brought about by moderniza­ tion processes. Consequently, both phenomena (socioeconomic develop­ ment and religion) are assumed to have unique effects on the significance of the family in a society. The Value of Children (VOC) Study The data presented here is part of the cross-cultural and international research project "Value of Children and Intergenerational Relations" (Trommsdorff & Nauck, 2005), which studied family-related values, intergenerational rela­ tions and support, as well as family-related future orientation of adolescents 350 Mayer and Trommsdorff cross-Cultural Perspectives 351 in connected samples of families (grandmothers, mothers, and adolescents) The data for the current chapter includes the adolescent samples from 17 cultural groups (see Table 15.1). In all cultures, participants were surveyed b members of the local collaborating team, completing a questionnaire eith y at home or in school. In cultures where strong urban-rural differences c er ontinue to exist (i.e., China, India, Indonesia, Poland, South Africa, and Turke ) samples from both rural and urban areas were included. In all other c�� tures, adolescents from suburban or urban regions were considered typical for the cultures. The participants were between 12 and 23 years old, with 98 percent of the sample being between 13 and 19 years old ("teenagers"); the overall mean age was 15.6 years (SD = l.65 years). All adolescents over the age of 20 came from Switzerland (M age: 19.8 years). Because participants' ages differed significantly across cultural groups, age was included as a covari­ ate in all cross-cultural comparisons. Participants from Israel were all Jewish, partly from secular and partly from Orthodox Jewish contexts. Participants from South Africa were recruited from the Northern Sotho cultural group (Limpopo Province), whose standard of living is considerably below the South African average (Sam, Peltzer, & Mayer, 2005). There were two Indian sam­ ples: one from Northern India (Varanasi area), and one from Southern India (Puducherry area). Because the two Indian samples are culturally diverse and speak different languages (Hindi in the North, Tamil in the South) we consider them as separate cultural groups for our analyses. The cultures represent a wide range of economic development, consid­ erable differences in exposure to Communism, and in secular-rational value orientations, all of which should be related to lower religiosity and to a lower family orientation. To assess adolescents' religiosity, we asked for their religious belief/affiliation and for the importance of these religious beliefs. The latter was a one-item measure, with ratings ranging from 1 (not important at all) to 5 (very important); it was only to be answered if a spe­ cific religious belief was indicated before. If participants indicated that they were not religious/had no religious affiliation, a value of 1 (not important at all) was set a posteriori in the importance measure. Of the overall sam­ ple, 22 percent were Roman Catholic Christians, 9 percent were Protestant Christians, 7 percent were Orthodox Christians, and 4 percent were of other Christian denominations. Thirteen percent were affiliated to Islam; 12 per­ cent to Hinduism; 4 percent to Judaism; 2 percent to Buddhism, Shintoism, Taoism or Confucianism; and 1 percent believed in Animism, Paganism or reported a personal religious belief. The largest group of 26 percent reported no religious belief (see Table 15.1 for further information). fable 15.1. Cultures, Sample Composition, and Religious Affiliation ..Region/Country 11 % Female % NonHighest Religious religious Affiliation (%) 1 --�orth America Protestantism (58 %) united States 337 64 12 Europe Roman Catholicism (58 %) France 200 55 35 Germany 311 56 44 Roman Catholicism (26 %) Switzerland l31 58 26 Roman Catholicism (28 %) Italy 381 54 15 Roman Catholicism (84 %) poland 327 60 2 Roman Catholicism (94 %) Czech Republic 260 100 79 Roman Catholicism (17 %) Estonia 300 51 84 Protestantism (6 %) Russia 334 54 12 Orthodox Christian Church (86 %) Middle East Turkey 308 53 3 Islam (93 %) Israel 194 63 9 Judaism (90 %) Africa South Africa 317 62 Protestantism (incl. Zion Christian Church) (48 %) Southeast Asia India (North) 300 51 1 Hinduism (94%) India (South) 300 50 2 Hinduism (98%) Indonesia 300 50 0 Islam (98 %)