Parental Religiosity, Parenting Style, and Adolescent Social Responsibility

Abstract

The hypotheses that parental religiosity would predict authoritative parenting and adolescent social responsibility were tested using data from fathers, mothers, and adolescents 10 through 18 years of age from 486 mostly Caucasian middle-class families participating in the Nonshared Environment (NSE) Study. Ratings of authoritative and authoritarian parenting were provided by trained observers using the Family Interaction Global Coding System. Survey instruments included measures of adolescent adjustment used previously by Hetherington and colleagues and a new index of religiosity that assesses the degree to which religious beliefs are manifested in parents’daily lives. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that religiosity was associated positively with authoritative parenting for both parents. Mothers’religiosity was associated negatively with authoritarian parenting; religiosity was unrelated to fathers’authoritarian parenting. Structural equation modeling indicated both direct effects and indirect effects (mediated by authoritative parenting) of mothers’and fathers’religiosity on adolescent social responsibility.