The moderating role of offspring religiosity in the intergenerational transmission of parental psychopathology

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study tests whether parental psychopathology is more or less detrimental to the mental health of offspring who report higher or lower levels of personal religiosity. We use national data from the Crime, Health, and Politics Survey in the United States (n = 1,731). Results suggest that offspring of parents with a history of psychopathology tended to exhibit higher levels of non-specific psychological distress in adulthood. We found no evidence that the positive association between parental psychopathology and offspring psychological distress was moderated at higher levels of childhood religiosity (measured by religious importance and religious attendance before age 14). However, offspring who reported that their religion was important or very important when they were growing up were more vulnerable to the intergenerational transmission of parental psychopathology. Offspring who reported higher levels of the divine sense of control in adulthood were less vulnerable to the intergenerational transmission of parental psychopathology.