| This study attempts to clarify the relative influence of parents, family and religiousness on two areas of adolescent problem behavior: precocious sexual activity and substance use. Previous studies have demonstrated an inverse relationship between adolesent problems and sources of emotional support such as religion, parents and family, without determining the relative strength of each.; From an urban and a suburban high school, 433 students from grades nine through 12 completed questionnaires on problem behaviors, religion and family relationships. Religiousness was consistently inversely related to problem behaviors to a modest but dependable degree. The extent of problems with parents and lack of family cohesiveness were positively related to problem behavior. The relationship between religiousness and problem behaviors was stronger than the relationship between the influence of parents or family and problem behaviors. This was true except in the cases of cigarette and hard drug use where religiousness was not as closely related. While hard drug use (such as cocaine use) was not related to religiousness, lack of family cohesiveness was related to such drug use. Religiousness, positive relationships with parents and close family ties were also found to be inversely related to dating and sexual activity. |
