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. 2011 Mar;41(2):201-10.
doi: 10.1007/s10519-010-9388-3. Epub 2010 Aug 15.

The etiology of stability and change in religious values and religious attendance

Tanya M M Button  1 , Michael C Stallings, Soo Hyun Rhee, Robin P Corley, John K Hewitt
Affiliations

The etiology of stability and change in religious values and religious attendance

Tanya M M Button et al. Behav Genet. 2011 Mar.

Abstract

Studies have demonstrated little to no heritability for adolescent religiosity but moderate genetic, shared environmental, and nonshared environmental influences on adult religiosity. Only one longitudinal study of religiosity in female twins has been conducted (Koenig et al., Dev Psychol 44:532-543, 2008), and reported that persistence from mid to late adolescence is due to shared environmental factors, but persistence from late adolescence to early adulthood was due to genetic and shared environmental factors. We examined the etiology of stability and change in religious values and religious attendance in males and females during adolescence and early adulthood. The heritability of both religious values and religious attendance increased from adolescence to early adulthood, although the increase was greater for religious attendance. Both genetic and shared environmental influences contributed to the stability of religious values and religious attendance across adolescence and young adulthood. Change in religious values was due to both genetic and nonshared environmental influences specific to early adulthood, whereas change in religious attendance was due in similar proportions to genetic, shared environmental, and non-shared environmental influences.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. A bivariate Cholesky decomposition model
A1: Genetic variance common to wave 1 and wave 2; C1: Shared environment variance specific to wave 2; E1: Nonshared environment variance specific to wave 2; A2: Genetic variance common to wave 1 and wave 2; C2: Shared environment variance specific to wave 2; E2: Nonshared environment variance common to wave 1 and wave 2; a11, c11, and e11: the influence of A1, C1, and E1 on wave 1 outcome; a21, c21, and e21: the influence of A1, C1, and E1 on wave 2 outcome; a22, c22, e22: influence of A2, C2 and E2 on wave 2 outcome.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Standardized path coefficients for the bivariate Cholesky decomposition model for religious values
Estimates in boldface indicate a significant pathway
Figure 3
Figure 3. Standardized path coefficients for the bivariate Cholesky decomposition model for religious attendance
Estimates in boldface indicate a significant pathway
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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