Religion’s Role in Marriage and Parenting in Daily Life and during Family Crises
Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality / edited by Raymond F.
Paloutzian, Crystal L. Park. (p.177-195)
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10
Religion’s Role in Marriage and
Parenting in Daily Life and during Family Crises
ANNETTE
MAHONEY
NALINITA
RAKESHWAR
In a
1995 Gallup poll of U.S. families, 65% of mothers and 57% of fathers said that
religion was “extremely” or “very” important in their lives (Mahoney et al.,
1999). About 90% of the U.S. population desire religious training for their
children (Gallup & Castelli, 1989) and 55% of married individuals (Heaton
& Pratt, 1990) attend religious services at least several times a year.
Thus, a vast audience in the United States is presumably receptive to messages
that can be drawn from religion about family relationships. In turn, empirical
studies from past decades indicate that religion is an important factor linked
to marital and parental functioning (e.g., Dollahite, Marks, & Goodman,
2004; Mahoney, Pargament, Tarakeshwar, & Swank, 2001).
Yet
psychologists have produced little theory or research on the role of religion
in family life. In hopes of stimulating more psychological research on religion
and family relationships, we begin this chapter with a review of empirical
findings on key aspects of religion and family life over the past 25 years. In
this section, we discuss the role of religion in marital and parent–child
subsystems in daily life as well as during various family crises.
We
also delineate major conceptual and methodological challenges left to be
tackled in the field of religion and family life. We end the chapter by
offering illustrative theoretical constructs for how religion might operate
during normative family transitions and family crises.
EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON RELIGION
AND FAMILY LIFE
Family
psychology encompasses the study of different family relationships during
normative stages of the family life cycle and family crises. Several
comprehensive reviews of re-177 search on religion and family life have
recently been published (Dollahite et al., 2004; Mahoney et al., 2001; Sherkat,
& Ellison, 1999). In this section, we review research on religion and daily
life across the domains of marital functioning, the transition to parenthood,
and the parenting of children and adolescents. We then discuss research on
family crises including marital infidelity, divorce, domestic violence, child
abuse, and raising a child with special needs.
To
convey well-documented empirical findings in this chapter, we cite effect sizes
calculated in a study by Mahoney et al. (2001) where meta-analytical techniques
were used to summarize religion–family links reported at least five times
across three or more studies. These quantitative studies reported bivariate
associations between religious variables and marital and parental functioning
and were published during the 1980s and 1990s.
The
majority of these studies (87%) involved national or community samples. This
minimizes the concern that findings were biased by the selection of highly
religious individuals from religious organizations. But, as is typical of large
surveys, most of the marital (80%) and parenting (66%) studies relied only on
single-item markers of religiousness, such as religious affiliation, frequency
of church attendance or prayer, and overall importance of religion. Not
surprisingly, the average effect sizes were therefore small in size.
Nevertheless, such associations across large heterogenous samples are
impressive since global items have very limited variability. For less
well-established findings, we discuss studies that are especially noteworthy on
conceptual or methodological grounds.
Religion and
Daily Life in Families
Marital Functioning
Global Marital Satisfaction. Two pieces of evidence
indicate that greater involvement in religion is tied to spouses’ global
satisfaction with their marriage based on single items (e.g., “Taking all
things together, how would you describe your marriage: very happy, pretty
happy, not too happy”) or brief questionnaires surveying a wide range of marital
issues. First, more frequent church attendance covaries with greater marital
satisfaction (average r= .07; Mahoney et al., 2001). Second, and more compelling,
the personal relevance of religion relates to greater marital satisfaction with
an averagerof .15 (Mahoney et al., 2001). The latter variable includes
single-item ratings of the importance of religion and frequency of prayer or
Bible reading, as well as more complex questionnaires about personal
religiousness. This suggests more in-depth indices of religiousness could
better account for marital satisfaction.
Two
important moderators of links between religion and marital satisfaction have been
identified. First, in a methodologically rigorous longitudinal study, Sullivan
(2001) found that global religiosity promoted marital satisfaction for
newlyweds over time, but only for couples with husbands with relatively greater
mental health. Both husbands and wives in more religious couples with a more
“neurotic” (reactive, negative) husband were less satisfied. Thus, in marriages
where both partners fulfill normative expectations of healthy behavior,
religion may heighten marital satisfaction; but in couples with a distressed
partner, greater religiousness may exacerbate marital difficulties. Second,
personal religiousness is especially predictive of marital happiness for
churchgoing people (r= .27; Mahoney et al., 2001). But contrary to the notion
that greater religiousness is merely a marker of marital conventionalization,
religiousness remains tied to marital satisfaction after controlling this
variable (Wilson & Filsinger, 1986).
Marital Commitment. Several researchers have
examined the idea that more religious people are more committed to marriage
than less religious people (Mahoney et al., 2001). Efforts to assess commitment
have included direct inquiry about investment in the marriage and inferring
commitment from the costs of losing the marriage. Greater individual
religiousness, as reflected by global items, is consistently tied to greater
commitment (average effect size ofr= .19; Mahoney et al., 2001). Furthermore,
two studies have found that greater church attendance relates to marital
commitment even after taking into account demographic factors and marital or
family satisfaction (Larson & Goltz, 1989; Wilson & Musick, 1996). In
addition, couples’ religious homogamy (i.e., shared religious affiliation,
church attendance, and/or beliefs) has been repeatedly tied to greater marital
commitment (averager= .097; Mahoney et al., 2001). Sharing deeply held
religious values about investing in their marriage over the long term may help
couples cement a long-range “couple identity,” which other research has tied to
greater sacrifices and harmony within the relationship (Stanley & Markman,
1992).
Marital Verbal Conflict and
Conflict-Resolution Strategies.
Research indicates that religion is a topic about which couples rarely directly
argue (Oggins, 2003). Also, contrary to concerns that more religious people may
tolerate conflict to stay together, spouses’ personal religiousness is
unrelated to the frequency of marital disputes (Mahoney et al., 2001). However,
the extent to which couples share religiously based views of particular topics
may inhibit conflict about these issues (Mahoney, 2005). For example, greater
religious similarity between spouses has been tied to fewer arguments (Curtis
& Ellison, 2002) and lower divorce rates (Call & Heaton, 1997).
Conversely, marked disparities in spouses’ beliefs about the Bible generate
more conflict about housework and money (Curtis & Ellison, 2002). Although
few couples report such polarization, couples argue more often about how they
spend time and about in-laws when the wife holds much more conservative
biblical beliefs than her husband, and more childrearing disputes arise for
couples when the husband is more conservative than his wife (Curtis &
Ellison, 2002).
Religion
also offers couples guidelines to resolve conflict after it erupts (Mahoney, 2005).
Several studies indicate that greater religiousness is tied to more
constructive conflict-resolution strategies. For instance, Brody, Stoneman,
Flor, and McCrary (1994) found that greater self-rated religiousness was tied to
better marital communication skills during direct observations of African
American families. Mahoney et al. (1999) also found that Caucasian couples who
engaged in more joint religious activities and viewed their marriage as sacred
said they more often resolved conflict via collaborative discussion. Further,
greater religiousness has not been linked to counterproductive problemsolving
strategies, such as yelling or stonewalling (Mahoney et al., 1999). Likewise,
no differences have emerged in the level of negative communication patterns in
marriages of fundamentalist than nonfundamentalist Protestants (e.g., Schumm,
Ja Jeong, & Silliman, 1990). In sum, evidence suggests that greater
religiousness is linked to less frequent marital conflict and better communication
patterns. More research is needed on how (dis)similarities in spouses’
religiously based values could moderate conflict.
Transition to Parenthood
Greater
church attendance has been consistently tied to higher birthrates (Krishnan, 1993).
Other research suggests that the birth of a child may trigger a transformation
in the spiritual orientation of parents, such that mothers in particular attend
church more frequently and experience a heightened sense of the importance of
God (Becker & Hofmeister, 2001). One qualitative study has also found that
the birth or presence of children prompted religious introspection or
involvement for some men (Palkovitz, 2002).
Although
such evidence implies that religion may ease the transition from childlessness
to parenthood, only a few studies have directly addressed this topic.
In
terms of obstetric outcomes, King and Hueston (1994) found that rates of
maternal complications and neonatal intensive care were lowest for mainline
Christian women, intermediate for evangelical Christians, and highest for
patients with no religious preference. Even after controlling for socioeconomic
confounds, mothers from mainline churches had a lower rate of complications,
and mothers who reported any type of religious affiliation had infants with a
lower risk of neonatal intensive care. In addition, Magana and Clark (1995)
argue that religious factors partly account for the well-established but
paradoxical findings on obstetric outcomes for Mexican American women. Despite their
relatively low socioeconomic status, Mexican American women deliver
significantly fewer low-birth-weight babies and lose fewer babies to all causes
during infancy than do women of other non-Angelo ethnic groups and are on par
with more socioeconomically advantaged Caucasian groups. Magana and Clark
speculate that more religiously devout Mexican American women turn to feminine
religious figures (e.g., the Virgin of Guadalupe) as positive role models,
which facilitates pre- and postnatal health care and coping with an infant.
To
our knowledge, only one longitudinal study has assessed the role of religion
and marital adjustment before and after the birth of a child. Wilcox and
Wolfinger (2003) found that urban mothers who attend church regularly were more
likely to be married at the time of birth than those who rarely attend church,
and women who had a nonmarital birth were more likely to marry within a year if
they attend church frequently. These religious effects were partly mediated by
the relationship-related beliefs and behaviors promoted by churches.
Churchgoing mothers expressed higher levels of commitment to the institution of
marriage. They were also more likely to receive higher levels of supportive behavior
(e.g., affection) from the child’s father and have less conflict with the
father over sexual fidelity. These findings imply that religion may serve as a
protective resource for marriages during the transition to parenthood.
Parenting of Children
Discipline Practices.The bulk of research on
religion and parenting has focused on whether Christian conservatism is tied to
attitudes about, and the use of, corporal punishment with preschoolers and
schoolage children. Such hypotheses are consistent with conservative
theological views about discipline practices (see Ellison, 1996, for an
excellent discussion). Adults who are affiliated with conservative Christian
groups or who hold literalistic beliefs about the Bible have repeatedly been
found to be more likely than other people to value child obedience (averager=
.18) and believe in corporal punishment (averager= .21; Mahoney et al., 2001).
Most of this attitudinal research has not, however, focused on parents.
Fortunately, a study by Gershoff, Miller, and Holden (1999) provides unique
insight into the topic. These researchers found that conservative Protestant
parents of 3-year-olds are more likely than other parents to believe that
spanking is a necessary, effective way to gain immediate and long-term
obedience, and less likely to believe spanking has negative consequences, such
as engendering fear or resentment. When asked to respond to vignettes that
portrayed their child exhibiting increasing noncompliance, conservative
Protestant parents also were more likely to select spanking and less likely to
select reasoning to handle defiance. Finally, they were less likely to report
feeling guilty about spanking. In terms of the actual use of corporal
punishment, Christian conservatism is related to parental spanking of
preadolescents with an average = .09 (Mahoney et al., 2001). This effect is
about half as robust as attitudinal links found in general adult samples.
Research has also failed to substantiate concerns that conservative Christian
membership or beliefs increase parents’ use of nonphysical, aversive punishments
(e.g., time-outs, threats, yelling; Gershoff et al., 1999) or severe physical
discipline (e.g., hitting with fist; Mahoney et al., 2001).
When
considering these findings, it is important to realize that the degree to which
parents endorse biblical literalism (e.g., “The Bible is the actual word of God
and is to be taken literally, word for word”) or Christian fundamentalism
(e.g., “The Bible is the answer to all important human problems”) is more
critical in predicting disciplinary attitudes or behavior than mere membership
in a conservative Christian group. The former variables mediate links between
religious denomination and both corporal punishment attitudes and behavior
(e.g., Ellison, Bartkowski, & Segal, 1996). Finally, an interactive effect
has been found between parents’ orientation toward the Bible (liberal vs.
conservative) and view parenting as a sacred endeavor when predicting corporal
punishment.
Murray-Swank,
Mahoney, and Pargament (2003) found that greater sanctification of parenting
was associated with decreased use of corporal punishment for mothers of young
children who had more liberal beliefs about the Bible. In contrast, among more biblically
conservative mothers, sanctification of parenting was unrelated to the
frequency of corporal punishment. Thus, viewing parenting as a divine endeavor
is tied to lower rates of corporal punishment, but only for parents who have a
more liberal Christian religious orientation. Overall, these studies highlight
the need to assess directly how much parents personally integrate particular
religious beliefs into their views of parenting.
Warmth and Effective Parenting
of Children.
Numerous studies suggest that religion may be tied to more effective parenting,
parental warmth, and family cohesiveness, but the diversity of samples and
methodologies precludes the quantification of summary effect sizes (Mahoney et
al., 2001). Thus, we highlight here five especially sophisticated studies.
First, two excellent studies examining African American families of 9- to
12-yearolds indicate that parents’ self-reported religiousness (church
attendance rate multiplied by self-rated importance) is tied to better observed
parenting and coparenting processes.
Specifically,
in Brody et al.’s study (1994), mothers’ religiousness was related to more skilled
parenting, less coparenting conflict, and better marital quality during
observed family interactions. Greater religiousness of fathers was also tied to
less coparenting conflict and better marital quality. Moreover, associations
between parental religiousness and parenting skills were mediated through
marital quality and coparenting skills. In the second study (Brody, Stoneman,
& Flor, 1996), measures of child adjustment were used.
Greater
maternal and paternal religiousness were directly tied to fewer child behavior problems.
Moreover, parental religiousness indirectly influenced youth self-regulation by
promoting family cohesiveness and lowering marital conflict.
Wilcox
(1998) also found that parents’ level of endorsement of theologically
conservative views about the Bible was related to self-reports of more frequent
hugging and praising of preschool and schoolage children after controlling for
religious and demo graphic factors. In a follow-up study, Wilcox (2002) found
that conservative parents were also less likely than their nonconservative
Protestant counterparts to yell at their preschool and schoolage children.
Further, Murray-Swank et al. (2003) found that greater sanctification of
parenting was tied to increased positive mother–child interactions when mothers
had more conservative beliefs about the Bible. But among more liberal mothers, no
link was found. Thus, even as parents with more conservative Christian beliefs
are more inclined to spank their children, they are also likely to be warmer
toward them, especially if they view parenting to be a sacred calling.
Parenting of Adolescents
Research
clearly indicates that greater parental religiousness influences adolescents’ adoption
of religious beliefs and practices (e.g., Sherkat, 2003). In turn, adolescents’
personal religiousness has been consistently tied to lower rates of
delinquency, substance use, and premarital sexuality (e.g., Donahue &
Benson, 1995) as well as to higher levels of positive outcomes (e.g., Regnerus,
2003). Surprisingly few studies, however, have directly investigated parental
religiousness and parent–adolescent interactions, but available findings are
encouraging.
Discipline Practices. We were unable to locate
published empirical studies that directly address the overlap between religion
and physical discipline of adolescents. However, in national surveys that
combine youth from ages 2 to 18, significant correlations have not emerged
between corporal punishment and either Christian conservatism (Alwin, 1986) or
the general importance of religion (Jackson et al., 1999). Thus, links between
conservative Christianity and corporal punishment seem to be restricted to
families of younger children. A longitudinal study by Regnerus (2003) uncovered
complex dynamics that may occur when highly devout religious parents try to
control teenagers. Greater global religiousness by parents and adolescents was
directly tied to less frequent serious delinquency for girls, but not boys. In
addition, via the degree to which parents granted freedoms to their teenagers
and the extent of teenagers’ happiness with the family, parent religiosity
predicted less teenage delinquency. However, these indirect pathways of
influence were much stronger for girls. Taken together, this suggests that high
levels of parental religiousness may “backfire” for sons who resist efforts to
control their behavior, while daughters may be more open to similar efforts by
highly religious parents.
Warmth and Positivity.Two rigorous studies suggest
that religion facilitates positive parent–adolescent relationships. In a rare
longitudinal study, Pearce and Axinn (1998) found that greater maternal
religiousness when an adolescent was 18 predicted more positive parent–child
relationship when the youth was 23 as reported by both parties. In addition,
congruence at the end of high school between mothers’ and youths’ religious attendance
and self-ratings of religion also predicted more positive mother–child
relationship satisfaction 5 years later. Likewise, using a large national
sample, Gunnoe, Hetherington, and Reiss (1999) found robust direct links
between parental self-reports of greater personal religiousness and
observations of greater authoritative parenting during dyadic problem-solving
discussions between adolescents and both parents. Moreover, indirect pathways
of influence were found for parental religiousness leading to greater social
responsibility by adolescents through authoritative parenting.
Parental Gender and Family Life
Fathering. Since about 1995, a rapidly
growing body of research has focused on religion and fatherhood (Dollahite et
al., 2004). Based on national surveys, greater church attendance has been tied
to more involvement by fathers’ in youth activities (Wilcox, 2002) and greater
paternal supervision, father–child interaction, and affection (Bartkowski &
Xu, 2000). Further, King (2003) persuasively demonstrated that global paternal
religiousness is tied to greater father–child relationship quality, positive
expectations for future relationship, felt obligation, and effort devoted to
parenting for married and divorced fathers, after controlling for demographic,
marital, and family attitudinal mediators. Further, a series of papers by
Dollahite and colleagues (e.g., Dollahite, Marks, & Olson, 1998, 2002)
based on interviews with religious fathers of special needs children who are
affiliated with the Church of the Latter Day Saints indicate that religious
faith provides a unique source of motivation and support to devote time and
effort into fathering.
Mothering. As Dollahite et al. (2004)
note, feminist scholars have theorized at length about complex intersections
between women, religion, and families. Yet, in puzzling contrast to the rest of
family psychology, mothers as a group seem to be overlooked in studies of
religion and family life. Existing research on religion and motherhood
predominately involve descriptive studies of African American (e.g., Brodsky,
2000) and Mexican American mothers (e.g., Garcia, Perez, & Ortiz, 2000).
Findings suggest that religious faith can facilitate adaptive parenting and the
personal well-being of mothers struggling with difficult circumstances (e.g.,
single parenthood, poverty). Given ample research that women are more likely
than men to attend religious services, to pray, to feel that religion is
important, and to use religious coping behaviors, and may benefit more than men
from such practices (e.g., Koenig, McCullough, & Larson, 2001), more
systematic research needs to occur on the intersection between mothering and
religion.
Religion and Family Crises
The
findings reviewed thus far indicate that religion is linked to better marital
and parental functioning in families selected from the general population.
Thus, under normative conditions, religion appears to benefit family
relationships. This raises the question about what are the circumstances, if
any, in which religion goes awry for family dynamics? Given that religious
systems of meaning provide people with fundamental assumptions about
appropriate, “God-given” family values and processes (Mahoney, Pargament, Murray-Swank,
& Murray-Swank, 2003) events that violate these assumptions may trigger
individual and relationship distress. We now discuss family crises that would
seem likely to have important religion dimensions.
Divorce
Multiple
studies indicate that religion is a protective factor against divorce. People
who endorse a religious affiliation have a lower risk of divorce than those who
indicate no affiliation (averager= –.08). This translates into a divorce rate
of approximately 49% for affiliated versus 62% for nonaffiliated people
(Mahoney et al., 2001). Likewise, more frequent church attendance is associated
with lower divorce rates (averager= –.13). This roughly corresponds to a 44%
divorce rate for frequent churchgoers compared to a 60% rate for infrequent
churchgoers. Several longitudinal studies indicate that church attendance is a
predictor, not merely a consequence, of divorce (Booth, Johnson, Branaman,
& Sica, 1995), even after controlling for more proximal variables (e.g.,
alcohol or drug use, infidelity) associated with divorce (Amato & Rogers,
1997).
Given
that divorce is a less normative event for more religious people, the
dissolution of a marriage may be an especially potent crisis for these
families. More religious adults and children may experience divorce as a
spiritual failure and struggle to reconcile this event with their religious
values. Empirical research apparently has not been done on the role of religion
to either facilitate or undermine the postdivorce adjustment of family members
or family relationships. However, adults who have divorced (Feigelman, Gormand,
& Varacalli, 1992) and their children (Lawton & Bures, 2001) are more
likely to repudiate religion, and would presumably have less access to the
positive psychosocial resources that religion offers.
Domestic Violence
Three
large-scale, sophisticated studies have found that frequent churchgoers are
about half as likely as infrequent attenders to experience marital physical
aggression over time (Fergusson, Horwood, Kershaw, & Shannon, 1986) and to
use physical aggression against their partners (Ellison, Bartkowski, &
Anderson, 1999). However, in the small percentage of couples where marked
dissimilarity exists between spouses’ biblical beliefs, Ellison et al. (1999)
found that more conservative men married to more liberal wives were 2.5 times
more likely to be aggressive than men married to women with similar biblical
views. Thus, overall, religion appears to typically be a protective factor
against marital violence. But questions remain about if and when perpetrators
may use religion to justify aggression, and how more devout believers may react
when they are victims of domestic violence. For example, Nason-Clark (1997)
observes that some religious beliefs of Evangelical Christian women may
increase their reluctance to leave a physically abusive husband. Clearly, more
research needs to untangle how religious practices or beliefs can become
intertwined with domestic violence.
Marital Infidelity
Although
sexual fidelity in marriage is a hallmark value promoted by major religions, scarce
research has focused on religion and sexual attitudes or behaviors within
marriage, as most research deals only with premarital sex. Nevertheless, a few
studies imply that sexual infidelity may be especially distressing for more
religious people. For instance, greater church attendance has been linked with
greater disapproval of extramarital sex in the United States, West Germany, and
Poland (Scott, 1998). Cochran and Beeghley (1991) also found that the strength
of U.S. adults’ professed commitment to their church doctrines for affiliates
of Catholic and Protestant denominations (the exception was Episcopalians) was
related to stronger disapproval of extramarital sex.
In
terms of behavior, in a national U.S. survey, frequent churchgoers said they
had engaged in extramarital sex less often than people who never attended
services (Atkins, Baucom, & Jacobson, 2001). This link was especially
robust for individuals within “very happy” marriages, whereas rates of
extramarital sex in “pretty happy” and “not too happy” marriages were constant
regardless of church attendance rates. Thus, reli-gious values may bolster
fidelity for the very happily married, but marital discontent may override
religious prohibitions for others. Overall, research implies that more
religious people hold higher expectations of sexual monogamy and would feel
especially guilt-ridden if they engaged in sexual infidelity or devastated if
their spouse had an affair, particularly if they thought their marriage was a
success. Such speculations, however, have yet to be empirically confirmed.
Child Physical Abuse
In
contrast to findings about corporal punishment, current research does not support
the idea that greater religiousness encourages child physical abuse. In fact, a
rigorous, large-scale, longitudinal study yielded opposite findings: namely,
young children whose parents rarely attended church in 1975 were more than
twice as likely to suffer from physical abuse during the subsequent 17 years
than children whose parents attended church regularly (Brown, Cohen, Johnson,
& Salzinger, 1998). The two other studies we located on this topic were
only descriptive in nature. Neither found a greater incidence of child physical
abuse in Latter-Day Saint (Rollins & Oheneba-Sakyi, 1990) or Quaker (Brutz
& Ingoldsby, 1984) families relative to the general population. Further, links
between conservative Christian variables and physical discipline appear to be
limited to families with young children and commonly used acts of corporal
punishment in this age group (e.g., spanking). Overall, it is unclear what
specific religious beliefs buffer or exacerbates parents’ use of excessive
physical force with youth.
Parenting a Child with Special
Needs
A
sizable body of literature, primarily descriptive and qualitative in nature,
has examined how families rely on religion to cope with children with a
developmental disability or serious illness (Dollahite et al., 2004). Many
parents spontaneously report during interviews that they use religion in a
positive manner to cope with children who have special needs. One positive form
of parental religious coping consists of benevolent reappraisals of a child’s
problems and the parent’s role as a caregiver. For example, Skinner, Bailey,
Correa, and Rodriguez (1999) found that 71% of Latino mothers viewed their
disabled child as a gift from God who found them worthy of the responsibility
of raising such a child or wanted them to grow from the experience. Another
positive form of religious coping consists of religious rituals and practices,
such as praying, attending religious services, or making pilgrimages to holy
places on behalf of oneself or one’s child (Bailey, Skinner, Rodriguez, Gut,
& Correa, 1999). However, in examining religious coping among parents of
children with autism, Tarakeshwar and Pargament (2001) found that mothers can
also experience negative emotions, such as being abandoned by their church and
by God. Notably, such feelings were predictive of greater depressive affect and
anxiety. Overall, research on religious coping per se in families of special
needs children has involved only mothers. However, Dollahite and colleagues have
found that fathers’ religious beliefs, religious practices, and religious
communities facilitated meaningful father–child relationships among Latter-Day
Saint families with special needs children, although there were some
congregational challenges (Dollahite et al., 1998, 2002, 2004).
Child Psychopathology
Research
indicates that global markers of greater parental and familial religiousness
are linked to better child psychological adjustment. This includes youth
exhibiting fewer externalizing and internalizing behavior problems, greater
prosocial traits, lower alcohol usage, less marijuana usage, and less serious
antisocial behavior (see Mahoney et al., 2001). As noted earlier, a few studies
suggest that parents’ religiousness promotes children’s functioning by
facilitating effective parenting (Brody et al., 1994; 1996; Gunnoe et al.,
1999).
Given
that more religious families tend to have better behaved children, it may be
especially challenging for such families to deal with child psychopathology
when it does occur. Consistent with this idea, Strawbridge et al., (1998) found
that more involvement in religious activities exacerbated the negative impact
of family dysfunction (e.g., marital or child problems) on depressive symptoms
of elderly adults, whereas religiousness buffered the negative effects of more
“uncontrollable” types of problems (e.g., chronic health problems, poverty).
While similar research has yet to be conducted with families of clinicreferred
youth, certain religious beliefs and practices could exacerbate as well as buffer
the maladjustment of clinically distressed youth.
Summary of Empirical Research
and Future Challenges
Overall,
social science research indicates that greater religiousness is clearly tied to
multiple aspects of family life. However, this body of research is best
described as embryonic. Several challenges lie ahead to develop this subfield.
First, current findings are overwhelmingly based on markers of religiousness
that fail to delve into the multifaceted nature of religion (Mahoney et al.,
2001). Religion is unique because it infuses peoples’ perceptions of daily life
with religious significance (Pargament & Mahoney, 2005). While religions
might differ on notions of God and other supernatural constructs, religions
provide family members with prescriptive guidelines about family relationships
that are reinforced through religious rituals, myths, and belief systems (Mahoney,
2005). Moreover, it is important to distinguish between two types of
theological messages (Mahoney, 2005). One involves constructs, such as
commitment or forgiveness, which may be advocated by both religious and
nonreligious worldviews. The second type of substantive message emphasized by
religion involves constructs, such as the sanctification of marriage or
parenting (Mahoney et al., 2003), that directly assess perceptions about the
sacred realm and are specific to religious worldviews. Such explicitly
religious processes do not have direct parallels within secular systems of meaning.
A
second challenge for the psychology of religion is to take seriously the notion
that religiously based beliefs and practices about family life could be
integrated into (1) individuals’ appraisals and experiences of family
relationships; (2) the dynamics of dyadic family interactions; and (3) the
functioning of a family system as a whole. To date, the prevailing conceptual
theory and findings in the psychology of religion address individual religious
functioning (e.g., private prayer; Koenig et al., 2001). However, religion also
has profound implications for social relationships. For example, people may use
religion as a guide for how to respond to the behavior of other family members.
Family dyads may engage in spiritual activities together or pull religious
figures into the relationship as a third party. Whole family systems can call
on religion to reinforce values to which all family members are expected to
adhere. Research on such religiously based interpersonal pro-cesses, and their
effects, is scarce.
A
third challenge is to address ways in which religion can help or harm family
relationships. While many messages offered by mainstream religions would seem
to promote desirable family dynamics, certain religious beliefs and practices
may be detrimental, especially for distressed family systems. Critics’ warnings
about the negative effects of religion on families seem implicitly concerned
with how religion may be used to justify pathological processes. However,
current empirical studies focus primarily on nondistressed samples. Thus, while
religion seems to facilitate family life in normative conditions, an enormous
amount of work remains to untangle the pros and cons of religion in different
family circumstances. Finally, when studying families, the costs and benefits
of religion need to be addressed at both the individual and relationship level
of system. While a particular religious belief or practice may be beneficial
for a family relationship, this may sometimes come at a cost to individual
well-being.
A
fourth challenge is to establish causal links between religion and family life.
Divorce
rates or proneness represent the sole outcome that has been repeatedly linked
to religiousness in longitudinal studies. Research on other constructs is
mostly crosssectional in design. Thus, even well-established findings could be
interpreted as positive family dynamics causing greater religiousness, not the
other way around. Reciprocal influences are, of course, also possible. In any
case, longitudinal studies would help to clarify the interplay of religion and
family factors over time, including the role of “third variables” as mediators
or moderators. Although many large-scale sociological studies have
statistically controlled for demographic covariates, more research is needed on
the salience of religion in the context of other protective family factors.
A
fifth challenge is to better differentiate how religion operates for subsets of
the general population, including different religious communities, ethnic
groups, and family systems. Nominal religious membership (e.g., Jewish,
Latter-Day Saint, Catholic, and various Protestant groups) reveals little about
individual differences or the function of beliefs or practices within a given
religious group. Overall, ample room remains for the development of in-depth
assessment about religiously based beliefs about marriage or parenting for
Western religious groups. Moreover, questions remain about how diverse ethnic groups
integrate different religions with family life (Dollahite et al., 2004).
Although some research has been conducted on religion and African American
families (e.g., Brody et al., 1994, 1996), other American racial minorities
including Asians and Hispanics are understudied. Further, a glaring gap
concerns non-Western religions despite the fact that there are roughly 1.1
billion Muslims (Koenig et al., 2001) and 800 million Hindus worldwide
(Almeida, 1996). Finally, there has been a lack of diversity in the types of
families studied, with most empirical research focused on traditional,
two-parent, married households. Thus, nontraditional family systems are not
well represented; this includes single-parent, gay, and blended families, as
well as multigenerational and grandparent-led households.
In
sum, psychologists have a great deal to offer and gain by helping to discover
factors that drive religion–family links. The scarcity of psychological
research on religion and family life may lead psychologists to underestimate
the salience of the spiritual realm, or reduce its influence to generic
psychosocial mechanisms (e.g., social support) also served by nonreligious
institutions and belief systems. We contend, however, that religion has
important implications for family life that deserve recognition from social
scientists (Mahoney et al., 2001).
EMERGING THEORETICAL CONSTRUCTS
TO ADVANCE
RESEARCH ON RELIGION AND FAMILY
DYNAMICS
Constructive
Religious Constructs and the Transition to Parenthood Snarey and Dollahite
(2001) argue that there is an “urgent need” for good middle-range theories that
address the complex relationships between familial and religious processes.
In
this section, we offer an illustrative model of a constructive religious
construct, called “sanctification,” that could facilitate family adjustment
during normative family life changes. Namely, the sanctification of pregnancy
is proposed as a process that could aid the transition to parenthood.
Sanctification refers to perceiving an aspect of life as having “divine”
significance and character (Pargament & Mahoney, 2005). Sanctification can occur
in two ways. Theistic sanctification refers to perceiving an aspect of life as
a manifestation of God (e.g., God is present in my marriage). Nontheistic
sanctification refers to imbuing an aspect of life with qualities that
characterize divinity (e.g., sacred, blessed, holy). Elsewhere, various
theological positions have been delineated in support of the sanctification of
marriage and of parenting (Mahoney et al., 2003). In a similar manner, a pregnancy
can be much more than a biological event; it can have spiritual significance.
Many
religions attach deep spiritual meaning to conceiving and giving birth,
particularly in the context of a marriage. Pregnancy in this light becomes a
blessing from God and can be described in terms of sacred adjectives, such as
“miraculous” and “divine.”
Initial
studies on sanctification have been conducted on marriage (Mahoney et al., 1999),
parenting (Murray-Swank et al., 2003), major life strivings (Mahoney,
Pargament, et al., 2005), one’s physical body (Mahoney, Carels, et al., 2005),
the environment (Tarakeshwar, Swank, Pargament, & Mahoney, 2001), and
premarital sexuality (MurraySwank, Pargament, & Mahoney, 2005). Overall,
findings on sanctification suggest that viewing an aspect of life through a
sacred lens has four important implications for family and individual
functioning (Mahoney et al., 2003; Pargament & Mahoney, 2005). First, people
tend to make major investments in sacred matters. As applied to the transition
to parenthood, parents who sanctify pregnancy would be expected to invest more
time and energy into prenatal care and make greater personal sacrifices for the
emerging family.
Second,
when people perceive aspects of their lives through a sacred lens, they enter a
spiritual world, one that contains a variety of spiritual resources to draw
upon to preserve and protect sanctified aspects of life. For example, the
transition to parenthood places significant stress on marriages and parents
themselves. Those who sanctify pregnancy would be expected to draw on spiritual
resources to help them cope. Individuallevel resources include prayer,
benevolent spiritual appraisals of situations, a collaborative relationship
with God, and spiritual support (Pargament, 1997). The couple could also tap
into family-based resources, such as joint prayer and spiritual intimacy, to
help protect the emerging family (Mahoney et al., 2003). Third, sanctification
is likely to elicit spiritual emotions. For example, pregnancy could be seen
not only as a psychological and social turning point, but also as a “signal of
transcendence” (cf. Berger, 1969), a sign that mother, father, and child are
part of a larger reality, a greater unfolding design in the universe. Such
perceptions are both cognitive and deeply emotional in nature. Although
research on sanctification has not evaluated emotional outcomes, the
sanctification of pregnancy could trigger strong emotions, especially
“spiritual emotions,” including feelings of gratitude, awe, humility, faith,
and hope about life in general and about the infant specifically.
Finally,
sanctification has been linked to psychological and spiritual benefits (Mahoney
et al., 2003; Pargament & Mahoney, 2005). Thus, the sanctification of
pregnancy would be expected to be tied directly to positive outcomes as well as
indirectly relate to benefits by way of the aforementioned processes of
investment, spiritual emotions, and spiritual resources. For example, greater
sanctification of pregnancy by mothers would be expected to be tied to greater
satisfaction with the pregnancy, a smoother labor and delivery, less postpartum
depression, and enhanced spiritual growth and well-being. Husbands would
presumably also experience many of these individual benefits. The effects of
sanctification should also encompass the marriage and thefamily as a whole.This
would include better marital and parental functioning aswell as
strongerparent–infant bonds.
The
infant, in turn, should exhibit better well-being at birth and during early
infancy. While speculative in nature, this model of the sanctification of
pregnancy is consistent with previous findings on the sanctification of
marriage (Mahoney et al., 1999) and parenting (Murray-Swank et al., 2003). More
importantly, it is presented here as an illustration of one approach to examine
more closely how religiously based beliefs could facilitate a normative
transition in the family life cycle.
Counterproductive Religious
Constructs and Divorce
We
now turn to one family crisis, namely, divorce, in which religiously based
beliefs and behaviors about family relationships could exacerbate individual
and relationship distress.
Sacred Loss and Desecration
Given
that marriage is typically sanctified (Mahoney et al., 1999), divorce often
could be appraised as a “sacred loss,” which is defined as the loss of an
aspect of life that previously had been viewed as a manifestation of the divine
and/or invested with sacred qualities (Pargament, Magyar, Benore, &
Mahoney, 2005). An alternative negative religious appraisal would be to view
divorce as a desecration. This refers to perceiving a sanctified aspect of life
as having been knowingly violated (Pargament et al., 2005). A recent study on
desecration and college students’ experiences of betrayal in romantic
relationship (Magyar, Pargament, & Mahoney, 2000) suggests that desecration
attributions may often occur when a spouse or child feels that one of the
spouses did something that violated the marriage (e.g., deception, infidelity).
In an initial study of sacred loss and desecration with a community sample (Pargament
et al., 2005), higher levels of both constructs were related to more intrusive
thoughts for adults who rated their most negative life event in the past 2
years (8% identified divorce or separation as the event). However, only sacred loss
was related to depression and only desecration was related to greater anger.
Furthermore, sacred loss was linked to greater posttraumatic growth and
positive spiritual change; in contrast, desecration was associated with less
posttraumatic growth. These results imply that the spiritual meaning people
attach to traumatic events is linked to different types of psychological
distress. Thus, within the context of a divorce, people’s reactions may partly
depend on the spiritual meaning attached to the event.
Spiritual Guilt
In
addition to appraisals of the divorce itself, people may make religious
appraisals of their own role in the dissolution of a marriage. To the degree
that spouses or children feel responsible for the divorce, they may experience
a profound sense of spiritual failure, ac-companied by a heightened sense of
religious guilt (Mahoney et al., 2003). For example, divorced spouses may
reason that because they had not been able to be perfectly accepting, giving,
and healing to one another in their marriage, they deserve to be cut off from the
presence of God (Livingston, 1985). Systematic research on parents’ or
children’s religious guilt in connection with divorce or other family crises
appears to be sparse.
Demonization
In
divorce cases where one party has violated a traditional religious wedding vow
(e.g., by adultery, abandonment during a serious illness), the other spouse may
demonize this partner. “Demonization” refers to viewing the perceived
perpetrator of a traumatic event as operating under the influence of demonic
forces, either intentionally or unwittingly. An initial study of demonization
focused on college students’ perceptions of the terrorists involved in the
September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and found that demonization
was linked to more extreme retaliation toward, and fear of, the terrorists (Mahoney
et al., 2002). In some divorce situations, one partner may similarly experience
more intense negative reactions if the spouse is seen as being aligned with
evil demonic forces. Such perceptions could undermine a child’s relationship
with the other parent and set the stage for greater postdivorce conflicts.
Theistic Triangulation
Finally,
theistic triangulation is a potentially powerful negative religious process
that could occur between family members as they work through a divorce. Based
on a Bowenian and/or structural family systems approach, clinicians have
highlighted howcouples may triangulate God into the marital system when
conflict emerges (Butler & Harper, 1994). That is, God could be drawn into
three types of counterproductive theistic triangles that block resolution of
conflict between family dyads: coalition (i.e., God takes one party’s side),
displacement (i.e., adversity is God’s fault), or substitutive (i.e., each party
seeks God’s support but avoids dealing directly with the conflict). In a study
of theistic triangulation, Yanni (2003) found that a higher rate of theistic
triangulation between college students and their parents was related to more
relationship conflict and distance between the parties. Divorcing couples in
which one or both spouses attempt to take a “spiritually one-up” position may
likewise have more conflict and difficulty establishing effective coparenting
relationships postdivorce.
In
sum, in addition to typical postdivorce readjustment challenges, family members
who perceive a divorce in negative spiritual terms may experience additional
personal difficulties and greater interpersonal conflict between family members
(e.g., heightened coparenting conflicts). Parents may engage in negative forms
of religious coping that undermines their personal recovery from divorce,
parenting skills, and coparenting relationship. Such problems may affect
children’s postdivorce adjustment. Children may also directly experience
spiritual struggles and personal distress in coming to terms with the dissolution
of their parents’ marriage.
Religious Resources to Recover
from Family Crises
Theory
and prior research in the psychology of religion has identified a variety of
spiritual mechanisms that families could access to recover from family
difficulties. Considerable research has focused on individual-level resources,
especially within the framework of religious coping as individuals cope with
difficulties related to the self (e.g., Pargament, 1997). However, empirical
research on how “family” members may employ religious coping strategies
specifically with “family” difficulties appears limited (Mahoney et al., 2001).
The following section discusses existing
evidence and highlight areas for exploration along these lines.
Family-Based Religious
Practices and Rituals
A
recent descriptive study found that long-married, religious couples say they
engage in religious practices as a couple (e.g., praying together) to resolve
marital conflict (Butler, Stout, & Gardner, 2002). Though it seems unlikely
that divorcing couples would pray together, some religious communities have
created religious rituals to provide a concrete ceremony for families to mark
the dissolution of a marriage (Paquette, n.d.). Further habitual engagement in
family prayer and attendance at religious services might also offer parents a
structured mechanism when a divorce does occur to communicate apologies, hopes,
and shared goals to their children within a context overseen by an authority
whose power supersedes even that of parents. This may help prevent resentment
and hostility from escalating out of control. Controlled studies about the
effectiveness and general pervasiveness of such family-based religious activities
to cope with divorce, or other family crises, need to be conducted.
Theistic Mediation
In
contrast to “theistic triangulation,” religion also offers family members
constructive strategies to resolve interpersonal conflict (Mahoney, 2005). In
theistic mediation, for instance, God (or other supernatural forces) is pulled
into a dyadic relationship as a third party who mediates conflict. In this
case, God would be perceived as (1) being interested in maintaining a
compassionate relationship with each person, (2) taking a neutral stance about
each person’s “side” of the story, and (3) insisting that each person take
responsibility for change in the relationship. Divorcing couples who view God
this way may more readily disengage from destructive communication patterns and
explore options for compromise or healthy acceptance of one another. Case
examples of marriage (e.g., Butler & Harper, 1994) highlight the power of
these processes. A recent study indicates that college students and parents who
incorporate God into their relationship as a spiritual mediator experience
fewer conflicts, higher levels of relationship satisfaction, and more adaptive
communication styles (Yanni, 2003).
CONCLUSIONS
In
conclusion, available empirical research indicates that greater religiousness
is linked to more positive marital and parental functioning. However, much work
is needed to create theoretical models and appropriate measurement tools that
would lead to a more finegrained understanding of how religion functions in family
systems during significant family events. As was illustrated in this chapter,
the type of influence that religion has for families is likely to depend on the
specific types of religiously-based beliefs and behaviors that family members
use to deal with normative family transitions and crises. Psychologists are
especially equipped and encouraged to pursue these questions. When found, the answers
will help inform policymakers, clergy, clinicians, and the millions of families
who participate in religion about the helpful and harmful roles that religion
can play in family dynamics.
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HANDBOOK OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY--- RAYMONDF. PALOUTZIAN CRYSTALL. PARK (p.177-195)
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