Stage 2 Registered Report: Parental and Children’s Religiosity in Early Childhood: Implications for Transmission

Abstract

ABSTRACT Religiosity in early childhood is an important, but underexamined, area of research, particularly in terms of parental influence. This study examines potential “transmission enhancers” in the association between parental and children’s religiosity in early childhood, ages 3 to 6. Overall, we hypothesized that parental religiosity will be positively associated with children’s religiosity. We examined religiosity for 235 dyads from Roman Catholic families through three dimensions: religious social identity, prayer, and God concept. We further tested four potential moderators which can enhance the association between parental and child religiosity, i.e. transmission. We considered one child variable (i.e. child age) and three familial variables (i.e. internalized parental religious motivation, active parental-child involvement, and credibility-enhancing displays). We expected that child age, internalized parental religious motivation, active parental-child involvement, and credibility-enhancing displays would strengthen the association between parental and children’s religiosity. However, for parents with lower religiosity, we hypothesized that none of these variables would moderate the link to child religiosity. Multivariate regression analysis of moderators with interactions did not show a significant effect of transmission enhancers but highlighted the importance of the child’s age as a predictor of children’s religiosity. Implications of transmission enhancers in the context of family religiosity are discussed.