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Religiousness and Infidelity: Attendance, but not Faith and Prayer, Predict Marital Fidelity
Author(s) -
Atkins David C.,
Kessel Deborah E.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of marriage and family
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.578
H-Index - 159
eISSN - 1741-3737
pISSN - 0022-2445
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2008.00490.x
Subject(s) - psychology , prayer , faith , happiness , attendance , fidelity , social psychology , religiosity , association (psychology) , facet (psychology) , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , theology , psychotherapist , philosophy , engineering , personality , electrical engineering , economics , big five personality traits , economic growth
High religiousness has been consistently linked with a decreased likelihood of past infidelity but has been solely defined by religious service attendance, a limited assessment of a complex facet of life. The current study developed nine religiousness subscales using items from the 1998 General Social Survey to more fully explore the association between religiousness and infidelity. Interestingly, logistic regressions using currently married participants ( N = 1,439) demonstrated that attendance, but not faith, nearness to God, prayer, and other religious attributes, was related to infidelity. Exploratory analyses also found that individuals with high religious importance but low attendance were more likely to have had an affair and weak evidence that marital happiness moderated the association between religiousness and infidelity.