J Jang
Biographic Data
| ID | 9326 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Jang |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Jang |
| SIGNATURE | JANG J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Baylor University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2228-158X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 52 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 686 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 52 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Religion, Accountability, and the Risk of Aggressive Misconduct Among Prisoners: Preliminary Evidence of Restorative Rehabilitation
Prior research has found inverse relationship between religious involvement and misconduct among prisoners. In this study, we examined the mediating role of accountability as welcoming responsibility for one’s actions with respect to the transcendent (e.g., God or a higher power) and other people. We applied structural equation modeling to analyze data from surveys with 339 individuals (108 females and 231 males) incarcerated at three facilities …
Delayed gratification across 22 Countries: A cross-national analysis of demographic variation and childhood predictors
Analysis of demographic variation and childhood correlates of financial well-being across 22 countries
Using nationally representative data from 202,898 participants in the Global Flourishing Study, this work examines factors associated with financial well-being across 22 countries. We investigate how demographic factors—including age, gender, marital status, employment status, education, religious service attendance and immigration status—are correlated with financial well-being (as assessed through four dimensions). Additionally, we analyse asso…
Assessing the Link Between Bible Reading and Flourishing Among Military Families: Preliminary Findings
This study examines whether participating in a Bible reading program for military families (called 'Hero Squad') is positively related to overall human flourishing among children, family units, and parents/caregivers. Previous research shows salutary associations between multiple dimensions of religiosity (including reading sacred texts) and different aspects of flourishing (e.g., physical health, psychological well-being, character and virtue, s…
Assessing a Faith-Based Program for Trauma Healing Among Jail Inmates: A Quasi-Experimental Study
This paper assesses a faith-based, short-term program for trauma healing among incarcerated individuals, “Correctional Trauma Healing Program” (CTHP). We hypothesized that participation in the CTHP would reduce negative consequences of lifetime trauma: symptoms of PTSD, state depression, state anger, suicidal ideation, and the risk of interpersonal aggression. We also hypothesized that the reduction, if found, would be partly attributable to anti…
Bible Use and Human Flourishing Among Members of the U.S. Military Community
We examined an understudied aspect of religiosity, namely engagement with a sacred text, in relation to a multidimensional construct of well-being. Specifically, we hypothesized that the relationship between Bible use (various ways of utilizing the Bible) and human flourishing would be positive and mediated by three likely outcomes of Bible use: spiritual engagement, positive beliefs about the Bible, and the behavioral influence of the Bible. The…
Religion and Misconduct Among Prison Inmates in South Korea
Although faith-based programs are present in most prisons for offender rehabilitation, the effect of religion on prison inmates remains an understudied topic. In addition, existing research shows mixed results about the religious effect. The present study intends to not only advance the understanding of inmate’s prison misconduct but also examine whether religion is likely to contribute to reducing the risk of misconduct using a non-Western sampl…
Religion and Responsibility-Taking Among Offenders in Colombia and South Africa: A Qualitative Assessment of a Faith-Based Program in Prison
This paper examines whether religion contributes to offenders taking responsibility for crimes. Specifically, we assessed whether participation in The Prisoner’s Journey (TPJ), a bible study program, increased or decreased responsibility-taking. We also examined whether religious offenders that did not participate in TPJ were likely to take responsibility for their offenses. For this study, we conducted a quasi-experiment in two Colombian and fiv…
A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effectiveness of the Tyro Dads Program
Transcendent Accountability and Pro-Community Attitudes: Assessing the Link Between Religion and Community Engagement
Prior research has established a positive relationship between religiosity and civic engagement but focused on public religiosity rather than private religiosity without explaining the relationship. We examined private religiosity as well as public religiosity in relation to community engagement, explaining the religiosity-community engagement relationship with two understudied mechanisms: "transcendent accountability" (seeing oneself as accounta…
Explaining the Relationship between Religiosity and Political Participation: The Mediating Roles of Transcendent Accountability and Religiopolitical Awareness
Prior research tends to find a positive relationship between religiosity and political participation. Explanations of this relationship have focused mostly on religiosity-generated organizational resources (e.g., civic skills), while paying less attention to psychological resources. We simultaneously examined different aspects of religiosity (belief, behavior, and belonging) and political participation (electoral and nonelectoral) in a structural…
Religiosity and Deviance Among College Students in Türkiye: A Test of Ascetic Theory
Although an inverse relationship between religion and deviance is empirically well-established in the western context, previous studies on Islam and deviance conducted in non-western countries are limited. To address this gap in deviance research, we hypothesized that individual religiosity would be inversely related to deviance with the inverse relationship being more likely for ascetic than anti-ascetic or secular deviance. To test this hypothe…
Perceptions of Accountability to God and Psychological Well-Being Among US Adults
The Restorative Prison: Essays on Inmate Peer Ministry and Prosocial Corrections
Prison Strains, Negative Emotions, and Deviance Among Prisoners in South Korea: A Latent-Variable Modeling Test of General Strain Theory
This article examines the applicability of general strain theory to correctional samples by testing whether prison strains are positively related to deviance among prisoners through strain-associated negative emotions and whether the negative emotions-deviance relationship is systematic in terms of inner versus outer directedness. Latent-variable structural equation modeling was applied to analyze survey data from 986 male prisoners in South Kore…
Proliferation of Hallyu Wave and Korean Popular Culture Across the World: A Systematic Literature Review From 2000-2019
The exponential growth in the popularity of Korean pop cultural products across the globe known as the Hallyu wave has grabbed the attention of people worldwide. At times when the geographic boundaries have become blurred due to the virtual connectivity and advancement in internet technology, South Korean popular culture is developing at an unprecedented rate across the globe. The popularity is such that it has entered the mainstream even competi…
Within-individual effects of strain on crime/drug use and conditioning effects of criminal coping propensity: Random-effects models
Explaining Gender Differences in Changes in Volunteering after Divorce
Although there is evidence that divorce and volunteering are related, little is known about the process by which divorce affects volunteering. Using four-wave panel data spanning 16 years, this study examines the causal mechanisms underlying changes in volunteering following divorce. Results from estimating structural equation models indicated that divorce affects volunteering through different mechanisms for women and men. For women, increased f…
"Four Gods" in Maximum Security Prison: Images of God, Religiousness, and Worldviews among Inmates
This paper extends research on images of God, which prior researchers based mostly on national survey data, to a study of offenders in prison. We first explore whether the distribution of Froese and Bader's (America's four gods: What we say about god-& what that says about us, Oxford University Press, New York 2010 ) four images of God among prison inmates is similar to that in the general population. We then examine whether an inmate's image of …
The Effects of Provincial and Individual Religiosity on Deviance in China: A Multilevel Modeling Test of the Moral Community Thesis
This paper examines the moral community thesis in the secular context of China. Using multilevel logistic regression, we test (1) whether both individual- (measured by affiliation with Islam, Buddhism and Christianity) and aggregate-level religiosity (measured by the number of mosques, Buddhist temples, and churches per 10,000 people in province) are inversely related to law and rule violations at the individual level and (2) whether province-lev…
Existential and Virtuous Effects of Religiosity on Mental Health and Aggressiveness among Offenders
Although prior research tends to show that religion has a salutary effect on mental health and a preventive effect on crime, studies explaining the religious effect, particularly those on offenders, have been limited. To address the issue, we examine whether religiosity is inversely related to negative emotions and aggressiveness among prison inmates. Additionally, we assess whether the relationships are attributable to an inmate's sense of meani…
Images of God, Religious Involvement, and Prison Misconduct among Inmates
The authors examine an offender’s images of God – beliefs concerning God’s forgiveness, engagement, and judgment – in relation to prison misconduct. They test whether these beliefs are related inversely to misconduct and, if so, whether the relationships are mediated by an inmate’s religious involvement. The authors apply latent-variable structural equation modeling to analyze data from a survey of inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Con…
The Relationship between Religion and Deviance in a Largely Irreligious Country: Findings from the 2010 China General Social Survey
We examined the religion–deviance relationship in China, analyzing the 2010 China General Social Survey data to estimate ordinary least squares, logistic, and negative binomial regression models. First, we found respondents who followed some form of religion to be no different from those without religion in law or rule violation. Second, respondents of folk religion were more favorable to unconventional sex than those without religion, and those …
Existential Spirituality, Religiosity, and Symptoms of Anxiety-Related Disorders: A Study of Belief in Ultimate Truth and Meaning in Life
This study proposes a concept called “existential spirituality”–defined as the extent of a person's belief in ultimate truth and meaning in life—and explores the relationship between existential spirituality and distress (with and without controlling for religiosity, which prior research found to be inversely related to distress). To empirically examine these relationships, a structural equation model was estimated based on nationally representat…
The Angola Prison Seminary: Effects of Faith-Based Ministry on Identity Transformation, Desistance, and Rehabilitation
Corrections officials faced with rising populations and shrinking budgets have increasingly welcomed "faith-based" providers offering services at no cost to help meet the needs of inmates. Drawing from three years of on-site research, this book utilizes survey analysis along with life-history interviews of inmates and staff to explore the history, purpose, and functioning of the Inmate Minister program at Louisiana State Penitentiary (aka "Angola…
Neighborhood Disorder, Fear, and Mistrust: The Buffering Role of Social Ties with Neighbors
This paper proposes that individuals who report that they live in neighborhoods characterized by disorder—by crime, vandalism, graffiti, danger, noise, dirt, and drugs—have high levels of fear and mistrust. It further proposes that an individual's alliances and connections with neighbors can buffer the negative effects of living in a neighborhood characterized by disorder on fear and mistrust. Results from a representative sample of 2482 Illinois…
Delinquent Peers, Beliefs, and Delinquent Behavior: A Longitudinal Test of Interactional Theory
Three theoretical models of the interrelations among associations with delinquent peers, delinquent beliefs, and delinquent behavior are examined. The socialization model views delinquent peers and beliefs as causally prior to delinquent behavior, whereas the selection model hypothesizes that associations with delinquent peers and delinquent beliefs are a result of delinquent behavior. The interactional model combines aspects of both the socializ…
Neighborhood Disorder, Individual Religiosity, and Adolescent Use of Illicit Drugs: A Test of Multilevel Hypotheses
We hypothesize about the relationships among perceived neighborhood disorder, individual religiosity, and adolescent use of illicit drugs, marijuana and hard drugs; and the age‐varying effects of religiosity on illicit drug use. Applying hierarchical linear models to analyze the National Youth Survey data, we first find that neighborhood disorder and religiosity have hypothesized effects on illicit drug use independent of social bonding and socia…
Gender, Religiosity, and Reactions to Strain Among African Americans
Drawing on Broidy and Agnew's (1997) Broidy, Lisa and Robert Agnew. 1997. “Gender and Crime: A General Strain Theory Perspective.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 34: 275–306.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] extension of general strain theory to explain gender differences in deviance and crime, we tested hypotheses explaining why women are more distressed than men, but less likely to commit deviance in reaction to st…
The ‘Invisible Institution’ and Black Youth Crime: The Church as an Agency of Local Social Control
Age‐varying Effects of Family, School, and Peers on Delinquency: A Multilevel Modeling Test of Interactional Theory
Few criminologists have directly examined whether the importance of family, school, and peers in the etiology of delinquency changes over the developmental period of adolescence. This study tests hypotheses, derived from Thornberry's (1987) interactional theory, about the age‐varying effects of attachment to parents, commitment to school, and association with delinquent peers on delinquency by applying Bryk and Raudenbush's (1992) hierarchical li…
Self-Esteem, Delinquent Peers, and Delinquency: A Test of the Self-Enhancement Thesis
The authors test Howard B. Kaplan's self-enhancement thesis, which argues that self-esteem is negatively related to delinquency but that delinquency is positively related to later self-esteem. Previous research on these countervailing causal effects has not been supportive, possibly because of a failure to specify and test for intervening mechanisms that may link self-esteem and delinquency. The authors focus on the impact of delinquent peers as …
Religious Involvement and Dynamics of Marijuana Use: Initiation, Persistence, and Desistence
Studies that examine the effects of adolescent religiosity on the initiation of, persistence in, and desistence from delinquency are rare. Yet, religion may differentially affect dimensions of delinquency in the early life course. Therefore, using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we examine the relationship between measures of adolescent religion, as well as changes in religious involvement, and later p…
Is Being “Spiritual” Enough Without Being Religious? A Study of Violent and Property Crimes Among Emerging Adults
Although prior research has had a tendency to confirm a negative association between religiousness and crime, criminologists have been slow to incorporate new concepts and emergent issues from the scientific study of religion into their own research. The self‐identity phrase “spiritual but not religious” is one of them, which has been increasingly used by individuals who claim to be “spiritual” but disassociate themselves from organized religion.…
General strain and non-strain theories: A study of crime in emerging adulthood
Explaining Religious Effects on Distress Among African Americans
This study applies Smith's (2003a) theory of religious effects to account for the link between religiosity and distress. Using a latent-variable structural equation modeling approach, we analyze survey data from a nationally representative sample of African-American adults and find empirical support for our hypotheses. In terms of anger, depression, and anxiety, religiously committed African Americans exhibit lower levels of distress than their l…
A “rough test” of a delinquent coping process model of general strain theory
The Effects of Childhood Exposure to Drug Users and Religion on Drug Use in Adolescence and Young Adulthood
Previous research finds drug-using peers and religiosity to be key predictors of drug use among youth, but the effects of childhood exposure to drug users and religion on later drug use have been understudied. The authors hypothesize a child's exposure to parental drug use and religious upbringing have a causal influence on drug use in youth primarily through drug-using peer association and religiosity during adolescence and young adulthood. To t…
Religiousness, Spirituality, and Psychological Distress in Taiwan
Most of the previous research on religion and mental health has focused solely on Western, predominantly Christian societies. Using a 2004 national survey of 1,881 adults in Taiwan, this study investigates the relationships between multidimensional measures of religiousness/spirituality and psychological distress in an Eastern context. Our findings differ from previous studies in the West, showing that: (1) religious-based supernatural beliefs ar…
Urban families and adolescent mental health
Journal Article Urban families and adolescent mental health Get access Susan B. Stern, PhD, Susan B. Stern, PhD associate professor and director of the Family Therapy Certificate Program School of Social Work, Boston University, 264 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215; e-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Carolyn A. Smith, PhD, ACSW, CSW, Carolyn A. Smith, PhD, ACSW, CSW associate professor …
Different Definitions, Different Modeling Decisions, and Different Interpretations: A Rejoinder to Lauritsen
"Four Gods" in Maximum Security Prison: Images of God, Religiousness, and Worldviews among Inmates
This paper extends research on images of God, which prior researchers based mostly on national survey data, to a study of offenders in prison. We first explore whether the distribution of Froese and Bader's (America's four gods: What we say about god-& what that says about us, Oxford University Press, New York 2010 ) four images of God among prison inmates is similar to that in the general population. We then examine whether an inmate's image of …
Existential and Virtuous Effects of Religiosity on Mental Health and Aggressiveness among Offenders
Although prior research tends to show that religion has a salutary effect on mental health and a preventive effect on crime, studies explaining the religious effect, particularly those on offenders, have been limited. To address the issue, we examine whether religiosity is inversely related to negative emotions and aggressiveness among prison inmates. Additionally, we assess whether the relationships are attributable to an inmate's sense of meani…
Explaining the Relationship between Religiosity and Political Participation: The Mediating Roles of Transcendent Accountability and Religiopolitical Awareness
Prior research tends to find a positive relationship between religiosity and political participation. Explanations of this relationship have focused mostly on religiosity-generated organizational resources (e.g., civic skills), while paying less attention to psychological resources. We simultaneously examined different aspects of religiosity (belief, behavior, and belonging) and political participation (electoral and nonelectoral) in a structural…
The Relationship between Religion and Deviance in a Largely Irreligious Country: Findings from the 2010 China General Social Survey
We examined the religion–deviance relationship in China, analyzing the 2010 China General Social Survey data to estimate ordinary least squares, logistic, and negative binomial regression models. First, we found respondents who followed some form of religion to be no different from those without religion in law or rule violation. Second, respondents of folk religion were more favorable to unconventional sex than those without religion, and those …
Being Prepared and Staying Connected: Scouting's Influence on Social Capital and Community Involvement
Objectives In recent years, scholars have become concerned about the effects that declining levels of social capital are having on community life in the United States. Data suggest that Americans are less likely to interact with neighbors and less likely to participate in community groups than they were in the past. Nevertheless, researchers have found that participation in some types of organizations has a positive impact on social capital and c…
Transcendent Accountability and Pro-Community Attitudes: Assessing the Link Between Religion and Community Engagement
Prior research has established a positive relationship between religiosity and civic engagement but focused on public religiosity rather than private religiosity without explaining the relationship. We examined private religiosity as well as public religiosity in relation to community engagement, explaining the religiosity-community engagement relationship with two understudied mechanisms: "transcendent accountability" (seeing oneself as accounta…
Homeschool and Underage Drinking: Is It More Protective than Public and Private Schools
This article examines differences in alcohol use between homeschool and both public and private school students. Applying regression analyses to two waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion, we found that homeschoolers were less likely to drink alcohol and get drunk than non-homeschoolers, which was explained in part by variables of social bonding, social learning, and, to a greater extent, religiosity. Specifically, parental monitoring …
Structured Voluntary Youth Activities and Positive Outcomes in Adulthood: An Exploratory Study of Involvement in Scouting and Subjective Well-Being
This study explores whether youth involvement in Scouting has positive consequences later in life. We examine whether the number of years of participation in Scouting is positively associated with human and social capital and recreational lifestyles in adulthood, and whether these are linked to subjective well-being: relational, emotional, and physical health. To explore this potential relationship, we estimated a structural equation model, analy…
Analysis of demographic variation and childhood correlates of financial well-being across 22 countries
Using nationally representative data from 202,898 participants in the Global Flourishing Study, this work examines factors associated with financial well-being across 22 countries. We investigate how demographic factors—including age, gender, marital status, employment status, education, religious service attendance and immigration status—are correlated with financial well-being (as assessed through four dimensions). Additionally, we analyse asso…
Testing Interactional Theory: An Examination of Reciprocal Causal Relationships among Family, School, and Delinquency
Attachment to parents and commitment to school are important buffers against delinquency. Adolescents who are emotionally bonded to their parents and who succeed at school are unlikely candidates for serious delinquency. These relationships have strong empirical support. In addition, however, it is possible that frequent involvement in delinquency can cause a substantial deterioration in the emotional bond between parent and child and in the adol…
Predictors of Interracial Homicide Victimization for Asian Americans: A Macrostructural Opportunity Perspective
This paper uses Blau's macrostructural opportunity theory to explore patterns of interracial homicide victimization among Asian Americans. Data are drawn from the F.B.I.'s Supplementary Homicide Reports and aggregated for 131 SMSAs over the 1976-1984 period. Unlike previous research, two out-groups-white and black offenders-are considered to see if the same predictors behave similarly for the different out-groups. As expected, the descriptive dat…
Delinquent Peers, Beliefs, and Delinquent Behavior: A Longitudinal Test of Interactional Theory
Three theoretical models of the interrelations among associations with delinquent peers, delinquent beliefs, and delinquent behavior are examined. The socialization model views delinquent peers and beliefs as causally prior to delinquent behavior, whereas the selection model hypothesizes that associations with delinquent peers and delinquent beliefs are a result of delinquent behavior. The interactional model combines aspects of both the socializ…
Self-Esteem, Delinquent Peers, and Delinquency: A Test of the Self-Enhancement Thesis
The authors test Howard B. Kaplan's self-enhancement thesis, which argues that self-esteem is negatively related to delinquency but that delinquency is positively related to later self-esteem. Previous research on these countervailing causal effects has not been supportive, possibly because of a failure to specify and test for intervening mechanisms that may link self-esteem and delinquency. The authors focus on the impact of delinquent peers as …
Urban families and adolescent mental health
Journal Article Urban families and adolescent mental health Get access Susan B. Stern, PhD, Susan B. Stern, PhD associate professor and director of the Family Therapy Certificate Program School of Social Work, Boston University, 264 Bay State Road, Boston, MA 02215; e-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Carolyn A. Smith, PhD, ACSW, CSW, Carolyn A. Smith, PhD, ACSW, CSW associate professor …
Age‐varying Effects of Family, School, and Peers on Delinquency: A Multilevel Modeling Test of Interactional Theory
Few criminologists have directly examined whether the importance of family, school, and peers in the etiology of delinquency changes over the developmental period of adolescence. This study tests hypotheses, derived from Thornberry's (1987) interactional theory, about the age‐varying effects of attachment to parents, commitment to school, and association with delinquent peers on delinquency by applying Bryk and Raudenbush's (1992) hierarchical li…
Different Definitions, Different Modeling Decisions, and Different Interpretations: A Rejoinder to Lauritsen
Neighborhood Disorder, Fear, and Mistrust: The Buffering Role of Social Ties with Neighbors
This paper proposes that individuals who report that they live in neighborhoods characterized by disorder—by crime, vandalism, graffiti, danger, noise, dirt, and drugs—have high levels of fear and mistrust. It further proposes that an individual's alliances and connections with neighbors can buffer the negative effects of living in a neighborhood characterized by disorder on fear and mistrust. Results from a representative sample of 2482 Illinois…
The ‘Invisible Institution’ and Black Youth Crime: The Church as an Agency of Local Social Control
Does Adolescent Religious Commitment Matter? A Reexamination of the Effects of Religiosity on Delinquency
This study reexamines the relevance of religiosity to the etiology of delinquency, given the inconsistent and inconclusive evidence found in the literature. Like previous researchers, the authors test whether the effects of religiosity on delinquency are spurious or completely indirect via social bonding, social learning, and sociodemographic variables. Unlike previous researchers, however, the authors (1) control for measurement errors in estima…
Neighborhood Disorder, Individual Religiosity, and Adolescent Use of Illicit Drugs: A Test of Multilevel Hypotheses
We hypothesize about the relationships among perceived neighborhood disorder, individual religiosity, and adolescent use of illicit drugs, marijuana and hard drugs; and the age‐varying effects of religiosity on illicit drug use. Applying hierarchical linear models to analyze the National Youth Survey data, we first find that neighborhood disorder and religiosity have hypothesized effects on illicit drug use independent of social bonding and socia…
Explaining Religious Effects on Distress Among African Americans
This study applies Smith's (2003a) theory of religious effects to account for the link between religiosity and distress. Using a latent-variable structural equation modeling approach, we analyze survey data from a nationally representative sample of African-American adults and find empirical support for our hypotheses. In terms of anger, depression, and anxiety, religiously committed African Americans exhibit lower levels of distress than their l…
Gender, Religiosity, and Reactions to Strain Among African Americans
Drawing on Broidy and Agnew's (1997) Broidy, Lisa and Robert Agnew. 1997. “Gender and Crime: A General Strain Theory Perspective.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 34: 275–306.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] extension of general strain theory to explain gender differences in deviance and crime, we tested hypotheses explaining why women are more distressed than men, but less likely to commit deviance in reaction to st…
Strain, Social Support, and Retreatism Among African Americans
This study tests Agnew's general strain theory (GST) for African Americans, a population neglected in GST research. Specifically, we examined (a) the differential effects of inner-and outer-directed negative emotions on withdrawing behavior and (b) the conditioning effects of social support on the understudied, deviant coping behavior. OLS regression analyses of data from a national survey of African American adults provide empirical evidence tha…
Gender Differences in Strain, Negative Emotions, and Coping Behaviors: A General Strain Theory Approach
This paper empirically evaluates Broidy and Agnew’s propositions, in which they apply general strain theory to explain gender differences in crime and deviance, by analyzing data from a national survey of adult African Americans. First, African American women were more likely to report strains related to physical health, interpersonal relations, gender roles in the family, and less likely to mention work‐related, racial as well as job strain than…
Religiousness, Spirituality, and Psychological Distress in Taiwan
Most of the previous research on religion and mental health has focused solely on Western, predominantly Christian societies. Using a 2004 national survey of 1,881 adults in Taiwan, this study investigates the relationships between multidimensional measures of religiousness/spirituality and psychological distress in an Eastern context. Our findings differ from previous studies in the West, showing that: (1) religious-based supernatural beliefs ar…
The Effects of Childhood Exposure to Drug Users and Religion on Drug Use in Adolescence and Young Adulthood
Previous research finds drug-using peers and religiosity to be key predictors of drug use among youth, but the effects of childhood exposure to drug users and religion on later drug use have been understudied. The authors hypothesize a child's exposure to parental drug use and religious upbringing have a causal influence on drug use in youth primarily through drug-using peer association and religiosity during adolescence and young adulthood. To t…
General strain and non-strain theories: A study of crime in emerging adulthood
Religious Involvement and Dynamics of Marijuana Use: Initiation, Persistence, and Desistence
Studies that examine the effects of adolescent religiosity on the initiation of, persistence in, and desistence from delinquency are rare. Yet, religion may differentially affect dimensions of delinquency in the early life course. Therefore, using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), we examine the relationship between measures of adolescent religion, as well as changes in religious involvement, and later p…
Being Prepared and Staying Connected: Scouting's Influence on Social Capital and Community Involvement
Objectives In recent years, scholars have become concerned about the effects that declining levels of social capital are having on community life in the United States. Data suggest that Americans are less likely to interact with neighbors and less likely to participate in community groups than they were in the past. Nevertheless, researchers have found that participation in some types of organizations has a positive impact on social capital and c…
Desistance and Protection from Binge Drinking between Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Study of Turning Points and Insulators
This study examines Sampson and Laub's concept of turning point as process as well as event in the explanation of changes and stability in the behavior of binge drinking between adolescence and emerging adulthood. It is hypothesized that marriage and involvement in religious and volunteer activities during the transition to adulthood decrease binge drinking among those who engaged in the behavior during adolescence. For those who did not, marriag…
Is Being “Spiritual” Enough Without Being Religious? A Study of Violent and Property Crimes Among Emerging Adults
Although prior research has had a tendency to confirm a negative association between religiousness and crime, criminologists have been slow to incorporate new concepts and emergent issues from the scientific study of religion into their own research. The self‐identity phrase “spiritual but not religious” is one of them, which has been increasingly used by individuals who claim to be “spiritual” but disassociate themselves from organized religion.…
Structured Voluntary Youth Activities and Positive Outcomes in Adulthood: An Exploratory Study of Involvement in Scouting and Subjective Well-Being
This study explores whether youth involvement in Scouting has positive consequences later in life. We examine whether the number of years of participation in Scouting is positively associated with human and social capital and recreational lifestyles in adulthood, and whether these are linked to subjective well-being: relational, emotional, and physical health. To explore this potential relationship, we estimated a structural equation model, analy…
Strain Theories and Crime
Religion, Delinquency, and Drug Use: A Meta-Analysis
Contemporary research on adolescent involvement in religion and delinquency is generally traced to Hirschi and Stark’s 1969 study, titled “Hellfire and Delinquency.” Their study surprised many by reporting no significant relationship between religious involvement and delinquency. Subsequent replications provided mixed results, but multiple reviews, both traditional and systematic, found religious involvement to be inversely related to delinquency…
Psychology (50 works) · Social Psychology (41 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Developmental psychology (21 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (20 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (19 works) · Religiosity (19 works) · Political science (18 works) · Clinical Psychology (17 works) · Medicine (17 works)