Content area
Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to examine the parental transmission of religiosity among Christian and Muslim emerging adults, and to explore the moderating roles of mother and father bonds in the associations between parental religiosity and self-religiosity, and in the associations between self-religiosity and mental health (anxiety and sadness). Data were collected via an online survey from 244 participants (144 Christians, 100 Muslims; 183 females, 57 males). Participants reported on self-religiosity (DUREL, Koenig, 1997; SCSORFQ – Short Form, Plante et al., 2002), anxiety (PROMIS Emotional Distress-Anxiety Subscale, Pilkonis et al., 2011), and sadness (NIH Toolbox Sadness Short-Form Scale, Salsman et al., 2013). Participants also reported on parental religiosity (SCSORFQ – Short Form, Plante et al., 2002), as well as retrospective reporting of the parental bond (PBI, Parker et al., 1979). As hypothesized, parental religiosity positively predicted self-religiosity for both Christians and Muslims. Other hypotheses were partially supported as only paternal bonds moderated the associations between parental religiosity and self-religiosity for Muslims, self-religiosity was negatively associated with both anxiety and sadness for Christians, and only the maternal bond significantly moderated the association between self-religiosity and anxiety for Muslims. Overall, this research highlights that the parental bond may continue to play an important role in religiosity during emerging adulthood, depending on the unique contributions of each parent well as religious affiliation.
