Religiousness is reliably associated with lower substance use, but little research has examined whether self-control helps explain why religiousness predicts lower substance use. Building on prior theoretical work, our studies suggest that self-control mediates the relationship between religiousness and a variety of substance-use behaviors. Study 1 showed that daily prayer predicted lower alcohol use on subsequent days. In Study 2, religiousness related to lower alcohol use, which was mediated by self-control. Study 3 replicated this mediational pattern using a behavioral measure of self-control. Using a longitudinal design, Study 4 revealed that self-control mediated the relationship between religiousness and lower alcohol use 6 weeks later. Study 5 replicated this mediational pattern again and showed that it remained significant after controlling for trait mindfulness. Studies 6 and 7 replicated and extended these effects to both alcohol and various forms of drug use among community and cross-cultural adult samples. These findings offer novel evidence regarding the role of self-control in explaining why religiousness is associated with lower substance use.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 10. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 September 2021.
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#4,870,520
of 34,517,289 outputs
Outputs from Journal of Personality & Social Psychology
#3,101
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Outputs of similar age
#39,870
of 272,258 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Journal of Personality & Social Psychology
#10
of 16 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,517,289 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 85th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 8,039 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 35.0. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 61% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 272,258 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 85% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 16 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 37th percentile – i.e., 37% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
