Many of the links of religiousness with health, well-being, and social behavior may be due to religion's influences on self-control or self-regulation. Using Carver and Scheier's (1998) theory of self-regulation as a framework for organizing the empirical research, the authors review evidence relevant to 6 propositions: (a) that religion can promote self-control; (b) that religion influences how goals are selected, pursued, and organized; (c) that religion facilitates self-monitoring; (d) that religion fosters the development of self-regulatory strength; (e) that religion prescribes and fosters proficiency in a suite of self-regulatory behaviors; and (f) that some of religion's influences on health, well-being, and social behavior may result from religion's influences on self-control and self-regulation. The authors conclude with suggestions for future research.Keywords: religion, self-control, self-regulation, motivation, personalityReligion is a potent social force. History testifies to religion's ability to focus and coordinate human effort, to create awe and terror, to foster war and peace, to unify social groups, and to galvanize them against each other. In addition to religion's social power, however, religion is a psychological force that can influence the outcomes of individual human lives. Indeed, the range of health-related, behavioral, and social outcomes with which religiousness is associated is both provocative and puzzling.Consider these well-replicated findings. First, religiousness (measured variously as high levels of traditional religious belief; frequent involvement in religious institutions such as churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples; and engagement in religious practices such as reading scripture, worship, and prayer) has a small, positive association with longevity. In a meta-analytic review of 42 independent effect sizes, McCullough, Hoyt, Larson, Koenig, and Thoresen (2000) discovered that people who were highly religious were, on average, 29% more likely to be alive at any given follow-up point than were less religious people (95% confidence interval: 1.20 to 1.39). In a traditional narrative review of studies considered by the authors to be of high quality (e.g., studies with large, representative samples and adequate statistical control of potential confounds), Powell, Shahabi, and Thoresen (2003) likewise concluded that frequent religious service attendance was associated with a 25% reduction in mortality.Studies published after McCullough et al.'s (2000) and Powell et al.'s (2003) reviews have yielded similar conclusions in random samples of U.S. adults (Musick, House, & Williams, 2004); older Mexican Americans (T. D. Hill, Angel, Ellison, & Angel, 2005); and adults in Denmark (la Cour, Avlund, & Schultz-Larsen, 2006), Finland (Teinonen, Vahlberg, Isoaho, & Kivela, 2005), and Taiwan (Yeager et al., 2006). These latter studies have also revealed 25% to 30% reductions in mortality for religiously active people, even after controlling for reasonable sets of potential confounds...

A series of three studies were conducted to develop and validate a scale to measure violence, harassment, and discrimination toward cross-dressers, transgenderists, and transsexuals. In Study 1, we developed the Genderism and Transphobia Scale (GTS). In Study 2, we established the GTS's ability to predict parents' reactions to either a gender conforming or a gender non-conforming boy or girl. Correlations between the GTS and scales that assess homophobia and gender role ideologies suggest convergent validity. In Study 3, we conducted a factor analysis of the scale, found further evidence of the scale's discriminant and convergent validity, and tested the scale's ability to predict previous contact with gender non-conformists. Taken as a whole, the results of these studies demonstrate the basic psychometric properties of a new and useful scale to measure antipathy toward people who cross genders and sexes.Discrimination and prejudical attitudes are common topics in gender research. Although sexism has received considerable attention, few professionals have investigated the prejudice and violence experienced by individuals who cross or change genders. There is very little systematic research on discrimination against transsexuals (those who use or want to use hormones and/or surgery to change their gender and live full-time in their adopted gender), transgenderists (those who change gender often with minimal medical intervention, sometimes moving back and forth between genders), and crossdressers (those who change gender temporarily using mostly outward symbols of gender like clothing) referred to collectively here as trans persons. Can anti-trans sentiments be measured reliably with a questionnaire? Are hateful attitudes toward gender non-conformists conceptually related to other constructs like heterosexism and beliefs about gender? To answer these questions, the following three studies report on efforts to operationalize and conceptualize anti-trans attitudes, feelings, and behaviors.

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual ("LGB") youth may face significant stressors related to their sexual orientation. Few studies, however, have examined youth's experiences of support for coping with these stressors. The current study compared LGB youth's perceptions of support for sexuality stress to their support for other types of problems. The links between sexuality stress, sexuality support, and emotional distress were also examined. Ninety-eight LGB youth (ages 18-21, 33% female) rated support from family, heterosexual friends, and sexual minority friends for dealing with problems related, and not related, to their sexuality. From family and heterosexual friends, support for sexuality stress was less available than support for other stressors. Sexual minority friends provided the highest levels of sexuality support. In regression analyses, higher levels of sexuality support related to decreased emotional distress and buffered against the negative effects of sexuality stress on emotional distress. Sexuality support, although less available than other types of support, may be especially relevant to mental health among LGB youth.

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