The Impact of Civic and Religious Social Capital on the Antisocial Attitudes of the Youth: A Multi-Level Cross-National Study

Abstract

The main goal of this paper is to investigate whether some dimensions of civic and religious social capital are connected to antisocial attitudes of the youth. Based on the social capital theory and previous research, the author assumed that membership of voluntary associations as a dimension of civic social capital and attendance at religious services as a dimension of religious social capital, will be negatively correlated with antisocial attitudes of the youth. The integrated dataset of the last European Values Study and the World Values Survey waves were used as the sources of the research data. The dataset was comprised of 11,411 respondents who were younger than 25 years old from 79 countries. As hypothesized, at the individual level, attendance at religious services was negatively correlated with antisocial attitudes, whereas membership of voluntary associations was positively correlated with antisocial attitudes. At the country level, none of the hypothesized correlations were confirmed. A cross-level interaction between GDP and associational membership was found. The author explains the findings by evoking the special characteristics of religious social capital and its strength in building moral obligations and by suggesting possible differences in incentives for joining voluntary associations in the countries with different levels of economic wealth.

Preservation of traditional values as the basis for responsible and safe behaviour of young people

“…In the article Ž. Pavić identifies strategic variables for the analysis of antisocial attitudes in the youth environment. A secondary analysis of the database of the World Youth Values Survey, which involved 11,411 respondents under 25 from 79 countries, revealed the influence of religious social capital on the reduction of antisocial attitudes of young people [11]. Thus, we see a high social potential of religious education, which begins with family religious traditions and religious socialization in the daily practices of close relatives.…”

Problems in Adolescents: What Are the Psychological, Social and Financial Consequences?

“…Pavić [9] in his paper "The Impact of Civic and Religious Social Capital on the Antisocial Attitudes of the Youth: A Multi-Level Cross-National Study" investigated whether various dimensions of civic and religious social capital were connected to antisocial attitudes among youth. Based on social capital theory and previous research, the study assumed that memberships in voluntary associations (as a dimension of civic social capital) and attendance at religious services (as a dimension of religious social capital) would be negatively correlated with adolescent antisocial attitudes.…”