Religiosity, Social Support, Divine Support and Adolescent Subjective Well-Being

Research hypothesizing the underlying causal mechanisms of positive religious effects on mental health and psychological well-being emphasize the potential social support found in religious communities, and psychological resources that provide comfort and security in difficult times. Missing from much of this literature are uniquely religious measures of these mechanisms. Little of the available research has focused upon these effects among adolescents. This paper applies these theoretical constructs using explicitly religious measures of an adolescent's perceived congregational support and beliefs about God's availability. Results indicate that among religiously engaged adolescents, increased worship attendance has no effect on adolescent subjective well-being (SWB). Religious salience is positively associated, and contrary to prior studies, private prayer has a negative association. While perceived congregational support and divine proximity are strongly associated with SWB they do not mediate the effects of prayer and religious salience. Further analyses indicates that the positive effects of religious social support for adolescents are linked to this subjective perception of congregational support, independent of the quantity of religiously affiliated peers and adults one trusts, or one's level of participation in religious communal activities like youth group or bible studies. In fact these measures of actual relationships have little impact on adolescent SWB.