European Canadian Research Articles

Results and lessons learned from the Generation IV SCWR-FQT comprehensive Monte Carlo computational benchmark

A joint European Canadian Chinese development of a supercritical water-cooled small modular reactor technology has been in progress since September 2020 in the framework of a Horizon 2020 project called ECC-SMART. A specific work package has been dedicated to studying the design- and safety-related neutronic parameters and reactor physics behavior of the SCW-SMR to support the pre-conceptual design process. Three Monte Carlo codes, viz., MCNP, OpenMC, and Serpent, were selected for pre-conceptual design applications and code-to-code comparison within the Gen-IV SCWR-FQT reactor physics computational benchmark. The effective multiplication factor, the axial power distribution within the fuel, the axial three-group neutron flux distribution, and the spatial distribution of the energy deposition due to neutron and photon interactions were determined. In this paper, results and lessons learned from this study are presented, and useful considerations are summarized to provide guidance in obtaining consistent results among the three Monte Carlo codes.

Prosocial lie-telling in preschoolers: The impacts of ethnic background, parental factors, and perceived consequence for the partner.

This study explored prosocial lie-telling behavior in 4- to 5-year-old children from two ethnic groups: European Canadian (n = 49; excluding Eastern European Canadian) and Chinese Canadian (n = 45). Children completed an online experiment involving two real-life politeness situations. In the first situation, children were asked whether they thought someone with a red mark on their face looked okay for a photo or a Zoom party (Reverse Rouge Task). In the second situation, upon hearing the researcher's misconception about two pieces of artwork, children were asked whether they agreed with the researcher (Art Rating Task). Parents completed questionnaires that measured their levels of collectivist orientation and parenting styles. Contrary to our hypotheses, the likelihood of children telling a prosocial lie did not vary as a function of their ethnic group or the presence of a perceived consequence for the partner, nor was it predicated by parental collectivist orientation. Interestingly, prosocial liars were more likely to have authoritative parents, whereas blunt-truth tellers were more likely to have permissive parents. These findings have important implications for the ways in which certain parenting styles influence the socialization of positive politeness in children. In addition, the similar rates of prosocial lying across the two ethnic groups suggest that children who are born and raised in Canada may be much more alike than different in their prosocial lie-telling behavior, despite coming from different ethnic backgrounds.

Binge-spectrum symptoms in their association with higher gestational weight gain.

Gestational weight gain (GWG) above or below recommendations is common and has implications for parent and infant health. Bulimia nervosa and binge-eating disorder during pregnancy have been associated with higher GWG. Yet, little research has examined the associations between binge-spectrum symptoms and GWG. Likewise, few interventions exist to adequately prevent GWG. The current study investigated a broad range of predictors of GWG, with the goal of identifying potentially modifiable risk factors. We conducted secondary data analyses of a subsample of individuals from the Alberta Pregnancy Outcome and Nutrition (APrON) longitudinal cohort study. Multinomial logistic regression estimated the odds of gestational weight gain (GWG) outside of Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendations and linear regression was used to examine total GWG continuously. Of the 1644 participants included, 848 (51.6%) exceeded the IOM's guidelines for GWG, and 272 (16.5%) gained below these recommendations. Binge-spectrum symptom symptomatology during pregnancy was not associated with exceeding GWG recommendations after accounting for post-secondary education, identifying as European Canadian, and higher pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI). However, greater self-reported binge-spectrum symptomatology during pregnancy was associated with higher total GWG after accounting for age, parity, and pre-pregnancy BMI. In addition to replicating identified predictors of higher GWG, we found that greater binge-spectrum symptomatology was associated with higher total GWG. These findings suggest that routine screening for eating pathology during pregnancy may identify those at risk for excess GWG. Gestational weight gain (GWG) outside of recommended ranges is associated with adverse outcomes. Little work has examined the associations between eating disorder symptoms and GWG. This study found that bulimia and binge-eating symptoms were uniquely associated with higher GWG beyond known risk factors. These findings support routine screening of eating disorder symptoms and interventions to help individuals gain within GWG recommendations during pregnancy.

Seeing the self through rose-colored glasses: A cross-cultural study of positive illusions using a behavioral approach.

Previous studies on self-enhancement bias used self-report measures to investigate individual and cultural differences in well-being. In the current research, we took a behavioral approach to analyze positive and negative perception tendencies between European Canadians, Asian Canadians and Koreans. In Study 1 and 2, participants were asked to bet on their expectation of success on a given task and then perform the task. The betting behaviors and actual performance were used to quantify positive and negative perception tendencies. In Study 1, we did not find cultural differences in positive and negative illusions. Positive self-perceptions were also not associated with higher self-reported well-being. In Study 2, we employed the same research design as Study 1, and we included a measure of perceived desirability to examine whether perceived desirability of the performance tasks are related to the two illusions indices. The results from Study 2 replicated the findings from Study 1, and perceived desirability did not influence the results. Our findings suggest that North Americans do not always exhibit more positive self-perceptions than Asians, suggesting that North Americans do not always view the self through rose-colored lenses.

Do Surrounding People's Emotions Affect Judgment of the Central Person's Emotion? Comparing Within Cultural Variation in Holistic Patterns of Emotion Perception in the Multicultural Canadian Society.

Previous studies in cultural psychology have suggested that when assessing a target person's emotion, East Asians are more likely to incorporate the background figure's emotion into the judgment of the target's emotion compared to North Americans. The objective of this study was to further examine cultural variation in emotion perception within a culturally diverse population that is representative of Canada's multicultural society. We aimed to see whether East-Asian Canadians tended to keep holistic tendencies of their heritage culture regarding emotion perception. Participants were presented with 60 cartoon images consisting of a central figure and four surrounding figures and were then asked to rate the central figure's emotion; out of the four cartoon figures, two were female and two were male. Each character was prepared with 5 different emotional settings with corresponding facial expressions including: extremely sad, moderately sad, neutral, moderately happy, and extremely happy. Each central figure was surrounded by a group of 4 background figures. As a group, the background figures either displayed a sad, happy, or neutral expression. The participant's task was to judge the intensity of the central figures' happiness or sadness on a 10-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 9 (extremely). For analysis, we divided the participants into three groups: European Canadians (N = 105), East Asian Canadians' (N = 104) and Non-East Asian/Non-European Canadians (N = 161). The breakdown for the Non-East Asian/Non-European Canadian group is as follows: 94 South Asian Canadians, 25 Middle Eastern Canadians, 23 African Canadians, 9 Indigenous Canadians, and 10 Latin/Central/South American Canadians. Results comparing European Canadians and East Asian Canadians demonstrated cultural variation in emotion judgment, indicating that East Asian Canadians were in general more likely than their European Canadian counterparts to be affected by the background figures' emotion. The study highlights important cultural variations in holistic and analytic patterns of emotional attention in the ethnically diverse Canadian society. We discussed future studies which broaden the scope of research to incorporate a variety of diverse cultural backgrounds outside of the Western educational context to fully comprehend cultural variations in context related attentional patterns.

The State-Trait Model of Cheerfulness: Tests of Measurement Invariance and Latent Mean Differences in European and Chinese Canadian Students.

The State-Trait Cheerfulness Inventory (STCI) assesses latent traits and states of cheerfulness, seriousness, and bad mood to represent the temperamental basis of humor. The present study (1) tested the generalizability of the three-factor model in both state and trait versions of the STCI across European Canadian (N = 489) and first generation Chinese Canadian (N = 147) participants completing the English version of the STCI and (2) compared latent mean differences. Results indicated the confirmatory factor analyses of the three-factor model for European White participants born in Canada and Chinese participants born in China showed adequate fit for both trait and state measures. Furthermore, substantial equivalence of factor model parameters and partial scalar invariance were found for both the state and trait STCI measures. In examining latent mean differences, European White Canadian participants reported significantly higher trait cheerfulness, z = 3.30, p < .001, d = 0.84, and lower trait bad mood z = 3.25, p < .01, d = 0.80 compared to the Chinese Canadian groups. European White Canadian participants reported significantly lower state bad mood, z = 3.59, p < .001, d=1.15, compared to the Chinese Canadian groups. Limitations and future directions based on study findings are discussed.

Environmental risk assessment and chemical contamination with heavy metals in the sediments of three drains, south of Manzala lake (Egypt)

ABSTRACT. Six heavy metals (Fe, Cd, Co, Cr, Ni, and Pb) were measured in all 15 sediment samples collected from three drains south of Manzala Lake (Egypt). The possible environmental risks of heavy metals in the sediment of the three drains were investigated using soil indices and risk assessment. Results showed that heavy metal contamination was found at the studied sites along the three drains, and pollution levels varied depending on metals and sites. The mean concentration (mgkg-1) ranked in the order of Fe (3950) ˃ Cd (22.36) ˃ Cr (21.15) ˃ Co (19.01) ˃ Pb (14.16) ˃ Ni (10.40) for Faraskour drain, Fe (5068) ˃ Cd (30.29) ˃ Co (18.97) ˃ Cr (16.90) ˃ Ni (15.03) ˃ Pb (12.16) for Al-Etaiwy drain and Fe (56.12) ˃ Cd (19.60) ˃ Co (17.15) ˃ Ni (14.88) ˃ Cr (10.10) ˃ Pb (10.03) for Ramsis drain. The mean ranges of enrichment factor for Cd, Co, Pb, Ni and Cr were 167.5-3858, 6.11-51.78, 4.38-31.20, 1.07-11.84 and 0.61-7.43, respectively. The average degree of contamination revealed that the majority of the sites had reached very high levels of pollution, with the exception of site 1, which had reached a moderate level of contamination. The ecological risk of heavy metals can be ranked as follows: Cd &gt; Co &gt; Pb &gt; Ni &gt; Cr, and the potential ecological risk index (PERI) were 931.0, 1173 and 818.5 in the Faraskour, Al-Etaiwy and Ramsis drains, respectively. To decrease pollution in these drains, it was determined that more effective restrictions on Cd and Co were needed. In general, the mean levels of Cr, Ni, and Pb in sediments from the three drains are within the European Union (EU) and Canadian Soil Quality Guidelines (CSQGD), Cd higher than EU and CSQGD, and Co higher than EU but lower than CSQGD.&#x0D; &#x0D; KEY WORDS: Heavy metals, Pollution indices, Environmental risk assessment, Drains, Nile Delta&#x0D; &#x0D; Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2022, 36(2), 315-327. &#x0D; DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v36i2.6

Moral identity and acculturation process among Chinese Canadians: Three cultural comparisons

This study explored Chinese Canadians’ moral identities and extended the investigation of the socio-cultural impact on moral identity. The main sample consisted of 131 Chinese Canadians. Approximately equal numbers of participants from two reference groups, European Canadians and Chinese in China, were also recruited. All participants were presented a moral identity questionnaire. It was found that Chinese Canadians’ self-selected moral values were more similar to European Canadians than to Chinese in China. Unexpectedly, the Chinese Canadians scored significantly lower in moral identity of context of community than the two reference groups. In addition, mainstream acculturation positively predicted Chinese Canadians’ moral identities after controlling for length of residency in Canada and immigration status. However, age of arrival played a role in acculturation processes and moral identity in the context of school. These findings suggest the notion of acculturation, with individuals’ moral identities being acculturated to the norms of mainstream Canadian culture.

Ethnic minority, immigrants, and Indigenous people’s well-being disparities in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mediating role of threat perceptions

The COVID-19 pandemic's differential impact on ethnic minorities, immigrants, and Indigenous people (e.g., mortality and infection rate, as well as psychological well-being) may exacerbate existing disparities. This study examined perceived threat as a psychological mechanism to explain the apparently more negative emotional experiences of ethnic minority Canadians during the pandemic compared with non-immigrant European Canadians (i.e., the majority/mainstream ethno-cultural group). We investigated group differences in negative affect and three possible threat mechanisms (perceived health, material, and cultural threat) for these differences using an online survey completed by a self-selected Canadian sample (N = 1,918). The results suggest that compared to the non-immigrant European Canadian group, ethnic minority members, immigrants, and Indigenous people have on average perceived higher levels of pandemic threat, which in turn is associated with negative affect. These findings support the hypothesis that the amount of threat perceived by different groups during the pandemic might partially explain reported group differences in well-being.

Culture and Stress Coping: Cultural Variations in the Endorsement of Primary and Secondary Control Coping for Daily Stress Across European Canadians, East Asian Canadians, and the Japanese

AbstractPeople's daily stress experiences differ across cultures. The current study examined how people cope with daily stress by applying primary and secondary control coping and how people change their strategies across situations (actual vs. ideal situations). European Canadians (n = 100), East Asian Canadians (n = 98), and the Japanese (n = 103) read 40 stress scenarios and judged their endorsement of stress coping strategies based on their actual primary and secondary control coping usage in the past, as well as their ideal preference of each coping strategy for each stress scenario. We examined whether primary versus secondary control coping usage differs across cultural groups. The results indicated the following. (a) European Canadians showed an overall usage for primary control coping over secondary control; however, there was no selection of primary control coping over secondary control coping for East Asian Canadians or the Japanese. (b) All cultural groups preferentially endorsed primary control coping over secondary control coping for their ideal preference of coping strategy. Nevertheless, the Japanese still showed more preference for endorsing secondary control coping as an ideal coping strategy compared to European Canadians. (c) There were mediational relationships between culture, independence, and the primary–secondary difference in control coping. (d) East Asian Canadians demonstrated a unique coping pattern, and we inferred that it reflected their multicultural identity. We discussed both academic and societal implications and assert that the present findings demonstrate significant relationships between people's culture and well‐being.

Cultural Differences in the Perception of Daily Stress Between European Canadian and Japanese Undergraduate Students.

The current research examines cross-cultural differences in people's daily stress experiences and the role of social orientations in explaining their experiences. Using a situation sampling method, Study 1 collected European Canadian and Japanese undergraduates' examples of stressful interpersonal and non-interpersonal situations they experienced, measuring participants' perception of the intensity and frequency of each type of situation. Studies 2 and 3 examined the effects of culture on participants' reports of stress symptoms under the situations. Study 3 assessed the mediating effects of independence and interdependence between culture and perceived stress. These studies indicated that the situational context moderates the effect of culture on perceptions of stress, showing a different amount of stress from interpersonal situations between Japanese and European Canadian undergraduates. Mediational analyses revealed that independent orientation partially explains the relationship between culture and stress from interpersonal situations. The implications of these results for culture and daily stress are discussed.

Cultural differences in social support seeking: The mediating role of empathic concern

Prior research has found that East Asians are less willing than Westerners to seek social support in times of need. What factors account for this cultural difference? Whereas previous research has examined the mediating effect of relational concern, we predicted that empathic concern, which refers to feeling sympathy and concern for people in need and varies by individuals from different cultures, would promote support seeking. We tested the prediction in two studies. In Study 1, European Canadians reported higher empathic concern and a higher frequency of support seeking, compared to the Japanese participants. As predicted, cultural differences in social support seeking were influenced by empathic concern. In Study 2, both empathic concern and relational concern mediated cultural differences in support seeking. Japanese with lower empathic concern but higher relational concern were more reluctant than European Americans to seek social support during stressful times. Finally, loneliness, which was more prevalent among the Japanese than among the European Americans, was partially explained by social support seeking.

Exploring the Creative Geographies of Work with Pre-Service Social Studies Teachers: Exposing intersections of time and labour in New Brunswick, Canada

What creative approaches might be harnessed to encourage social critique and action in pre-service Geography teacher education? By reflecting on an assignment in Casey’s Introduction to Teaching Geography class where pre-service teachers (including Allen) visually mapped a worker’s labour for a day on unceded and unsurrendered Wolastoqiyik territory (Fredericton, New Brunswick), we ask: What can we learn about work, labour, space, capitalism, and intersectionality by visually mapping a worker’s day and analyzing their labour? We argue that by confronting the apolitical teaching of Geography education through the example of the Mapping Labour assignment, we might attempt to disrupt the ways that European Canadian settler geographies permeate the existing curriculum and work to disrupt neoliberal assumptions about schooling, creativity, and work.

Considering cross-cultural differences in sleep duration between Japanese and Canadian university students.

Sleep is a fundamental biological process that all humans exhibit, and there is much evidence that people suffer adverse health outcomes from insufficient sleep. Despite this evidence, much research demonstrates significant heterogeneity in the amounts that people sleep across cultures. This suggests that despite serving fundamental biological functions, sleep is also subject to cultural influence. Using self-report and actigraphy data we examined sleep among European Canadian, Asian Canadian, and Japanese university students. Significant cultural differences emerged in terms of various parameters of sleep (e.g. sleep time), and beliefs about sleep (e.g. perceived relation between sleep and health). Despite sleeping significantly less than European Canadians, Japanese participants slept less efficiently, yet reported being less tired and having better health. Moreover, relative to European Canadians, Japanese participants perceived a weaker relation between sleep and physical health, and had a significantly shorter ideal amount of sleep. Asian Canadians’ sleep behaviors and attitudes were largely similar to European Canadians suggesting that people acculturate to local cultural sleep norms.

Tomorrow will be different: Children's ability to incorporate an intervening event when thinking about the future.

Future-oriented thought is ubiquitous in humans but challenging to study in children. Adults not only think about the future but can also represent a future state of the world that differs from the present. However, behavioral tasks to assess the development of future thought have not traditionally required children to do so as most can be solved based solely on representations of the present. To overcome this limitation, we modified an existing task such that children could not simply rely on a representation of the present to succeed (i.e., the correct answer for "right now" was different than the correct answer for "tomorrow"). A sample of 117 4- to 7-year-olds (64 girls and 53 boys) from Ottawa, Canada, and surrounding area, who were predominantly European Canadian (78.6% of sample) and had a family income of over $100,000 CAN (66.1% of sample) participated. Children remembered the information required to solve our task, and there were age-related changes in performance, but only 7-year-olds made an adaptive future-oriented decision significantly more often than chance. With the task modification removed (so the correct answer for the present and the future was the same), even 4-year-olds were above chance. Our work challenges the notion that starting at age 4, children solve behavioral tasks of future thinking by acting on their representations of the future. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Abstract SP097: Local Regional Management Following Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy: Minding the Knowledge Gaps

Abstract Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is often used in managing breast cancer patients, particular those with HER2-positive (HER2+) or triple negative disease. Among the known benefits of administering chemotherapy prior to surgery is the opportunity to assess response which informs prognosis. The CTneoBC analysis, which included 12 trials enrolling over 11,950 patients, showed that patients experiencing a pathologic complete response (pCR; ypT0ypN0 or ypT0/isN0) have improved event-free and overall survival with the association between pCR and longterm outcomes being strongest in patients with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) and in those with HER2+/hormone receptor-negative breast cancer receiving trastuzumab. In triple negative and HER2+ breast cancer, the response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy also informs the need for additional adjuvant therapy. For patients with TNBC and significant residual disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the CREATE-X trial showed benefit for adjuvant xeloda. For patients with HER2+ breast cancer not experiencing a pCR to neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus HER2-targeted therapy, the KATHERINE trial showed a significant improvement in invasive disease-free survival and overall survival in patients receiving adjuvant T-DM1 versus adjuvant trastuzuamb. With respect to considerations for local regional therapy, it is known that neoadjuvant chemotherapy decreases the primary tumor size such that tumors thought to be inoperable become operable and tumors thought to require mastectomy downstage to be eligible for lumpectomy. More recently it has been shown that neoadjuvant chemotherapy can decrease the extent of axillary surgery required. While historically patients with clinically node positive disease at presentation were thought to require axillary lymph node dissection (ALND), the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group Z1071 trial demonstrated that sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) was feasible in those who convert to clinically node negative disease following neoadjuvant chemotherapy. These findings were confirmed in the European SENTINA trial and Canadian SN-FNAC study. All three of these studies suggested that technical aspects of the SLNB procedure were critical to ensure a sufficiently low false negative rate. While these are the “known knowns”, there are many “known unknowns” and evolving data, particularly as it relates to local regional therapy following neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Included among the “known unknowns” are the optimal imaging modality to assess response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy thereby facilitating surgical planning, optimal technique for performing SLNB for those patients converting from clinical N1 to clinical N0 disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the definition of negative margins for a lumpectomy, the role of routine use of immunohistochemistry for cytokeratins in pathologic evaluation of the sentinel lymph nodes, the optimal method for pathologic staging following neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and the role of ALND versus radiation therapy for patients with residual nodal metastases in the sentinel nodes. More recently, it has been questioned whether patients experiencing a complete radiographic response can undergo image guided biopsy in lieu of surgery; yet data from 3 prospective series demonstrate unacceptably high false negative rates with this approach. Given the significant implications of accurately assessing response to therapy and the presence of residual disease, optimizing local regional management is a critical component of the multidisciplinary care of these patients. In this lecture, the available data guiding local regional management after neoadjuvant chemotherapy will be reviewed with attention focused on areas in which there is limited data, therefore knowledge gaps. Citation Format: E Mittendorf. Local Regional Management Following Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy: Minding the Knowledge Gaps [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Virtual Symposium; 2020 Dec 8-11; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(4 Suppl):Abstract nr SP097.

Does self-construal shape automatic social attention?

We examined whether activating independent or interdependent self-construal modulates attention shifting in response to group gaze cues. European Canadians (Study 1) and East Asian Canadians (Study 2) primed with independence vs. interdependence completed a multi-gaze cueing task with a central face gazing left or right, flanked by multiple background faces that either matched or mismatched the direction of the foreground gaze. Results showed that European Canadians (Study 1) mostly ignored background gaze cues and were uninfluenced by the self-construal primes. However, East Asian Canadians (Study 2), who have cultural backgrounds relevant to both independence and interdependence, showed different attention patterns by prime: those primed with interdependence were more distracted by mismatched (vs. matched) background gaze cues, whereas there was no change for those primed with independence. These findings suggest activating an interdependent self-construal modulates social attention mechanisms to attend broadly, but only for those who may find these representations meaningful.

Canadian Studies in the Czech Republic and Central Europe

This article surveys the development of Canadian Studies in Czechoslovakia/the Czech Republic from 1985 (the year the first such course was offered at a Czech university) down to the present. It also deals with the wider context of the development of Canadian Studies in Central Europe under the aegis of the Central European Association for Canadian Studies, established in 2003 with its Secretariat located at Masaryk University, Brno. In both the Czech Republic and the wider region, the late 1990s saw a steady growth in Canadian Studies, fostered by financial support from the Canadian government and outreach activities by Western European Canadian Studies associations. The first decade of the twenty-first century saw an explosion of activities - many new courses and degree programmes, conferences and specialized seminars, international projects, publications, the launching of the Central European Journal for Canadian Studies. The century’s second decade, however, has witnessed retrenchment, the result of systemic changes in higher education systems and the Canadian government’s cancellation of all support for Canadian Studies activities in 2012. Nevertheless, in both the Czech Republic and Central Europe, Canadian Studies continues to enjoy a significant and respected presence in the higher education sphere.

Achievement may be rooted in teacher expectations: examining the differential influences of ethnicity, years of teaching, and classroom behaviour

There is an achievement gap between students of different ethnic groups. An important alterable contributor to academic achievement is teacher expectations—the beliefs teachers hold about their students’ academic capabilities. Teacher expectations affect students’ academic performance—high expectations are associated with higher academic performance and low expectations are associated with lower academic performance. Using a survey, we collected data from 140 teachers at a teacher conference in March 2017. In addition to demographic questions, the survey had two scales that gathered information about teacher expectations and behaviours. Differential item functioning analyses showed that teachers had higher expectations for Asian Canadian students and lower expectations for Indigenous students compared with European Canadian students. Explanatory item response modeling showed teachers with six or more years of teaching experience, and teachers above 35 years old, had higher expectations for their students. Teachers did not report behaving differently towards different groups of students. Therefore, there appears to be a discrepancy between teacher expectations and their reported behaviours toward students from various ethnic groups. Implications for future research include exploring if reported behaviours can be observed in the classroom. In addition, there may be a need to modify teacher expectations within teacher education programs.

Development of Religious Identity and Commitment During Emerging Adulthood: A Mixed-Methods Longitudinal Study

Past research has found that religious commitment declines during emerging adulthood unless individuals make significant life commitments. A growing body of research has suggested that a resolution of religious commitment is related to personal identity development. In the present study, we examined religious belief and identity in relation to religious commitment during emerging and young adulthood longitudinally and using a mixed-methods approach. The study included 55 participants (72% females, 87% Christians, and 90% European Canadians) who were followed 3 times at the ages of 23, 26, and 32. We found that early religious belief at age 23 positively predicted religious commitment 9 years later at age 32. However, this relationship was mediated by religious identity maturity at age 26. In addition, we explored religious identity themes in a set of interviews. We found that people who were able to connect with significant markers of religious identity would maintain high religious commitments at age 32. The study thus suggested that religious identity in emerging adulthood might prevent a decline in religious commitment later in life.