Secularization Trends Obscure Developmental Changes in Religiosity

Abstract

How do people’s religious beliefs and behaviors change over the course of adulthood? Previous research found rapid decreases in religiosity during young adulthood and rebounds in middle and late adulthood. However, secularization trends—if not accounted for—can bias or obscure age-graded changes in religiosity. Using longitudinal data from over 14,000 Dutch participants aged 16 to 101 years, we disentangled secularization trends from developmental changes in religiosity. Controlling for secularization, we found no evidence for age-graded declines in religiosity among young adults but lifelong increases in religiosity. These increases were most pronounced during middle to late adulthood, consistent with theories that emphasize the self-transcendent focus of this life stage. College-educated individuals were generally less religious and experienced less pronounced age-graded increases in their religious beliefs. These findings must be understood in the context of secularization trends as indicated by significant decreases in religiosity among people of all demographic groups.

Transactional effects between personality and religiosity.

“…To this end, we examined the reciprocal within-person effects between the Big Five personality traits (emotional stability, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness; John et al, 2008) and religiosity (belief in God, service attendance, and prayer; Saroglou, 2010) across 11 annual assessments in a nationally representative sample of over 12,000 Dutch adults. Consistent with previous research on personality and religiosity, we further examined if the longitudinal associations between personality and religiosity were moderated by age, gender, or religious upbringing (Bengtson et al, 2015; Bleidorn et al, 2023; Costa et al, 2001; McCullough et al, 2003; Stark, 2002).…”

“…Other research has used this data; an overview is provided at https://www.dataarchive.lissdata.nl/publications. We have used this data previously to investigate religiosity development across the life span (Bleidorn et al, 2023). No previous research has used this data to examine the reciprocal relations between personality and religiosity, which is the primary goal of the present study.…”

“…nl/publications. We have used this data previously to investigate religiosity development across the life span (Bleidorn et al, 2023).…”

“…In addition to capturing multiple aspects of an individual’s religious experience, there are three reasons to suggest that these indicators are similar yet distinctive enough to test both the robustness and specificity of associations across the variables, respectively. First, evidence from a previous study indicated that these three indicators follow similar yet distinguishable trajectories across the life span (Bleidorn et al, 2023). Second, the correlations between these indicators ranged from .60 ≤ r ≤ .72, indicating strong but imperfect links between these measures ().…”

No Evidence for Transactional Effects Between Religiosity and Self-Esteem in a Secular Country

“…Other research has used these data; an overview is provided at https://www.dataarchive.lissdata.nl/ publications. We have used these data previously to investigate religiosity development across the life span and the association between religiosity and the Big Five personality traits (Bleidorn et al, 2022;Lenhausen et al, 2023). No previous research has used these data to examine the reciprocal associations between religiosity and self-esteem, which is the primary goal of this study.…”