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Institutional and Personal Spirituality/Religiosity and Psychosocial Adjustment in Adolescence: Concurrent and Longitudinal Associations

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Abstract

Spirituality/religiosity is hypothesized to promote positive adjustment among adolescents. The goals of this study were to assess the unique and joint associations between two dimensions of spirituality/religiosity—institutional and personal—and a range of domains of psychosocial adjustment (intrapersonal well-being, quality of parent–child relationship, substance use, and academic orientation) and to evaluate the direction of effects in these associations. Participants included 803 predominately Canadian-born adolescents (53 % female) from Ontario, Canada, who completed a survey in grade 11 and grade 12. At the concurrent level, higher personal spirituality/religiosity consistently and uniquely predicted more positive adjustment in terms of well-being, parental relationship, and academic orientation. Higher institutional spirituality/religiosity uniquely and consistently predicted lower substance use, particularly when personal spirituality/religiosity also was high. With regard to the direction of effects (i.e., longitudinal associations), institutional spirituality/religiosity predicted lower future substance use. The results imply that the personal and institutional dimensions of spirituality/religiosity may be associated differentially with psychosocial adjustment, and it may be only in the domain of substance use that spirituality/religiosity predicts change in behavior over time.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge funding received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Author contributions

MG conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, performed statistical analyses, and drafted the manuscript. TW designed and coordinated the survey, helped with statistical analyses, and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Brock University, 500 Glenridge Ave, Saint Catharines, ON, L2S 3A1, Canada

    Marie Good & Teena Willoughby

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 1265 Military Trail, Toronto, ON, M1C 1A4, Canada

    Marie Good

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Correspondence to Marie Good.

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Good, M., Willoughby, T. Institutional and Personal Spirituality/Religiosity and Psychosocial Adjustment in Adolescence: Concurrent and Longitudinal Associations. J Youth Adolescence 43, 757–774 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-013-9989-2

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