RT Article
T1 Religiosity and Premarital Sexual Behaviors Among Adolescents: An Analysis of Functional Form
JF Journal for the scientific study of religion
VO 58
IS 2
SP 439
OP 458
A1 Hayward, George M.
LA English
YR 2019
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1669980855
AB While numerous studies show a persistent inverse association between religion variables and adolescents' sexual behaviors, the nature of this relationship is not well understood. Specifically, many previous studies presuppose that the associations between adolescent religiosity and sexual behaviors are linear. However, a number of studies have also identified important nonlinearities of religious influence during adolescence, with highly religious individuals being distinct from their peers. Incorporating this knowledge into a theoretically motivated modeling approach, this article provides a comparative analysis of functional forms describing the relationships between religiosity and adolescent sexual behaviors. Using data from two waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion, a linear functional form is compared with nonlinear alternatives that link multiple religion measures to outcomes of sexual activity. Results show that the majority of these relationships are best defined by nonlinear functional forms, suggesting that the influence of religiosity increases as individuals become more religious.
K1 Adolescence
K1 functional form
K1 Religion
K1 Sexual behaviors
K1 Youth
DO 10.1111/jssr.12588