title: Religiousness and aggression in adolescents: The mediating roles of self-control and compassion.
abstract: Although people have used religion to justify aggression, evidence suggests that greater religiousness corresponds with less aggression. We explored two explanations for the religion-aggression link. First, most major religions teach self-control (e.g., delaying gratification, resisting temptation), which diminishes aggression. Second, most major religions emphasize compassionate beliefs and behavior (i.e., perspective taking, forgiveness, a broader love of humanity) that are incompatible with aggression. We tested whether self-control and compassion mediated the relationship between religion and aggression (direct and indirect) in a longitudinal study of 1,040 adolescents in the United States. Structural equation analyses revealed that self-control and compassion together completely mediated the religion-aggression relationship for both types of aggression.
authors.affiliation: University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
authors.forename: James A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Shepperd
authors.affiliation: University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
authors.forename: Wendi A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
authors.forename: Colin Tucker
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D004645:Empathy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D012069:Religion and Psychology; D000068356:Self-Control / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States / Q000208:ethnology
keywords: adolescents; aggression; compassion; forgiveness; perspective taking; religiousness; self-control