Woosang Hwang , Kent Jason Cheng , Maria T. Brown , Merril Silverstein
{"title":"Religiosity of baby-boomers in young adulthood: Associations with psychological well-being over the life course","authors":"Woosang Hwang , Kent Jason Cheng , Maria T. Brown , Merril Silverstein","doi":"10.1016/j.alcr.2022.100477","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>Although several studies have discovered positive relationships between religion and various aspects of mental health, less is known about longitudinal associations between religiosity and psychological well-being over the life course. We examined how religious latent classes during the transition to adulthood are associated with trajectories of psychological well-being over 45 years. We selected 798 young-adults baby-boomers from the 1971 wave of the </span>Longitudinal Study<span><span> of Generation (mean age: 19 years) and tracked their psychological well-being over nine waves up to the 2016 wave (mean age: 64 years). Latent class analysis focused on four religiosity domains (religious service attendance, religious intensity, civic value of religion, literal beliefs) identified four distinct latent religious classes: strongly religious, weakly religious, liberally religious, and privately religious. Results of latent growth curve modeling showed that strongly religious baby-boomers during the transition to adulthood generally reported better psychological well-being than weakly religious baby-boomers at the same stage in life. In addition, psychological well-being in strongly, liberally, and privately religious baby-boomers followed a consistently </span>upward trend across the life course, whereas among weakly religious baby-boomers psychological well-being followed an inverted u-curve (increased until mid-40s and decreased thereafter). Findings suggest that earlier religiosity may serve as a significant predictor affecting psychological well-being throughout the adult life course.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":47126,"journal":{"name":"Advances in Life Course Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Advances in Life Course Research","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S104026082200017X","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Medicine","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Although several studies have discovered positive relationships between religion and various aspects of mental health, less is known about longitudinal associations between religiosity and psychological well-being over the life course. We examined how religious latent classes during the transition to adulthood are associated with trajectories of psychological well-being over 45 years. We selected 798 young-adults baby-boomers from the 1971 wave of the Longitudinal Study of Generation (mean age: 19 years) and tracked their psychological well-being over nine waves up to the 2016 wave (mean age: 64 years). Latent class analysis focused on four religiosity domains (religious service attendance, religious intensity, civic value of religion, literal beliefs) identified four distinct latent religious classes: strongly religious, weakly religious, liberally religious, and privately religious. Results of latent growth curve modeling showed that strongly religious baby-boomers during the transition to adulthood generally reported better psychological well-being than weakly religious baby-boomers at the same stage in life. In addition, psychological well-being in strongly, liberally, and privately religious baby-boomers followed a consistently upward trend across the life course, whereas among weakly religious baby-boomers psychological well-being followed an inverted u-curve (increased until mid-40s and decreased thereafter). Findings suggest that earlier religiosity may serve as a significant predictor affecting psychological well-being throughout the adult life course.
期刊介绍:
Advances in Life Course Research publishes articles dealing with various aspects of the human life course. Seeing life course research as an essentially interdisciplinary field of study, it invites and welcomes contributions from anthropology, biosocial science, demography, epidemiology and statistics, gerontology, economics, management and organisation science, policy studies, psychology, research methodology and sociology. Original empirical analyses, theoretical contributions, methodological studies and reviews accessible to a broad set of readers are welcome.