Religiosity, Marijuana Use, and Binge Drinking: A Test of the Moral Community Hypothesis

“Every Sinner Has a Future”: Religiosity, Future Orientation, Self-Control, and Marijuana Use

“…Given the lack of research that addresses the relationships between religiosity, future orientation, self-control, and delinquency, I examined the effect of religious service attendance and importance of religion on future orientation, self-control, and marijuana use. Because there is a substantial body of research that focuses on the relationship between religiosity and substance use (e.g., Freeman 2019;Guo and Metcalfe 2019;Hill and Pollock 2015;Hoffmann 2014;Jang 2019;Jang et al 2008;Longest and Vaisey 2008;Nie and Yang 2018;Rivera et al 2018;Thomson 2016;Varma et al 2017), and because previous research suggests that religiosity is more strongly related to substance use than serious delinquency (Burkett and White 1974;Miller and Vuolo 2018), I chose to focus on adolescent marijuana use. Based on previous research, I expect that adolescents who attend religious services frequently, and those who believe that religion is important, will be less likely to use marijuana.…”

Examining the Institutional Features Influencing Sexual Assault at Small Colleges and Universities*

“…Echoing Stark (46), Regnerus (37) demonstrates a strong relationship between belonging to a moral community and levels of adolescent delinquency in the United States, and this effect is heightened in conservative protestant communities. Recently, also looking at adolescents and emerging adults, Rivera, Lauger, and Cretacci (38) find that immersion in a moral community is related to lower levels of marijuana use and binge drinking. Focusing specifically on the rural United States, Lee (26) finds that areas with stronger moral communities have significantly lower violent crime rates.…”

Moral Communities and Institutional Misconduct: A Reassessment of Religious Contextual Influences on Inmate Behavior

“…One key point that emanates from the preceding discussion is that the relationship between religious context and misconduct is very likely to differ across different forms of misconduct due to differences between religiously and secularly informed moral codes. For instance, while religion, at the individual and contextual levels, offers protective effects against substance use (Adamczyk & Palmer, 2008; Rivera et al, 2018), other groups that form the basis of social identity may have norms that promote or tolerate substance use. Prison gangs represent one such form of social belonging that offers potential impacts to substance use as control of drug markets within prisons stands as a central function of such gangs (Skarbek, 2014).…”

“…Religious practice at the individual level has comprised the focal point of this line of inquiry. Since religion at a contextual level has been linked to social control with respect to several different forms of delinquency (Adamczyk & Palmer, 2008; Eitle, 2011; Lee & Bartkowski, 2004; Regnerus, 2003; Rivera, Lauger, & Cretacci, 2018), the religious context of correctional settings presents a potentially salient correlate of inmate behavior.…”