Abstract

American youth are leaving organized religion at historical levels. Given that religious and political similarity (consensual solidarity) tends to strengthen affectual solidarity (emotional connection) in parent-adolescent dyads, decreasing adolescent religiousness and increasing political disagreements may threaten family social cohesion. However, during adolescence, youth empathy skills tend to increase and adolescents’ conflict with their parents tends to eventually subside. Based on principles outlined in intergenerational family solidarity theory, I hypothesized that adolescent empathy skills and authoritative parenting style would buffer the negative relational effects of religious and political discrepancies within the parent-adolescent relationship. I used Waves 2-4 (referred to as Times 1-3) of parent-adolescent data drawn from the Family Foundations of Youth Development study (Time 2 N = 1764 families) to understand patterns of discrepancy using a person-centered analysis. As a first step in latent profile analysis, I enumerated five distinct classes in Time 2 using the indicators of religious and political identities and social cohesion at both Times 2 and 3, alongside the covariates of adolescent empathy, parenting styles, and demographic controls. Next, I labeled the five classes as follows: Class 1 – Less Religious Parents Politically Mixed (26% of the sample, n = 665); Class 2 – More Religious Parents Moderate Conservative (26% of the sample, n = 399); Class 3 – Both Somewhat Religious Conservative (20% of the sample, n = 254); Class 4 – Least Religious Adolescents Politically Mixed (14% of the sample, n = 236); and Class 5 – More Religious Adolescents Very Conservative (14% of the sample, n = 210). Finally, I compared the five classes on the longitudinal distal outcome of social cohesion at Time 3. The Less Religious Parents Politically Mixed families predicted significantly less social cohesion while the Both Somewhat Religious Conservative families predicted significantly higher social cohesion from Time 2 to 3.

Degree

PhD

College and Department

Family, Home, and Social Sciences; Psychology

Rights

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