Processes Linking Parents’ and Adolescents’ Religiousness and Adolescent Substance Use: Monitoring and Self-Control

Empirical evidence suggests that religiousness is related negatively to adolescent substance use; yet, we know little about how such protective effects might occur. The current study examined whether parents’ and adolescents’ religiousness are associated positively with parental, religious, and self-monitoring, which in turn are related to higher self-control, thereby related to lower adolescent substance use. Participants were 220 adolescents (45 % female) who were interviewed at ages 10–16 and again 2.4 years later. Structural equation modeling analyses suggested that higher adolescents’ religiousness at Time 1 was related to lower substance use at Time 2 indirectly through religious monitoring, self-monitoring, and self-control. Higher parents’ religiousness at Time 1 was associated with higher parental monitoring at Time 2, which in turn was related to lower adolescent substance use at Time 2 directly and indirectly through higher adolescent self-control. The results illustrate that adolescents with high awareness of being monitored by God are likely to show high self-control abilities and, consequently, low substance use. The findings further suggest that adolescents’ religiousness as well as their religious environments (e.g., familial context) can facilitate desirable developmental outcomes.     

Structural Home Environment Effects on Developmental Trajectories of Self-Control and Adolescent Risk Taking

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Extant literature has demonstrated that self-control is critical for health and adjustment in adolescence. Questions remain regarding whether there are...     

Parent-Adolescent Relationship Quality as a Moderator for the Influences of Parents’ Religiousness on Adolescents’ Religiousness and Adjustment

Prior investigations have demonstrated that parents’ religiousness is related inversely to adolescent maladjustment. However, research remains unclear about whether the link between parents’ religiousness and adolescent adjustment outcomes—either directly or indirectly via adolescents’ own religiousness—varies depending on relationship context (e.g., parent-adolescent attachment). This study examined the moderating roles of parent-adolescent attachment on the apparent effects of the intergenerational transmission of religiousness on adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms using data from 322 adolescents (mean age?=?12.63?years, 45?% girls, and 84?% White) and their parents. Structural equation models indicated significant indirect effects suggesting that parents’ organizational religiousness was positively to boys’ organizational religiousness—the latter of which appeared to mediate the negative association of parents’ organizational religiousness with boys’ internalizing symptoms. Significant interaction effects suggested also that, for both boys and girls, parents’ personal religiousness was associated positively with adolescent internalizing symptoms for parent-adolescent dyads with low attachment, whereas parents’ personal religiousness was not associated with adolescent internalizing symptoms for parent-adolescent dyads with high attachment. The findings help to identify the family dynamics by which the interaction of parents’ religiousness and adolescents’ religiousness might differentially influence adolescent adjustment.     

Longitudinal Associations between Social Relationships and Alcohol Use from Adolescence into Young Adulthood: The Role of Religiousness

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - As adolescence is a time characterized by rapid changes in social relationships as well as an increase in risk-taking behaviors, this prospective longitudinal...