The Association Between Religiosity and Social Behaviour Among Children: A Romanian Perspective

Abstract

For children, a proper environment will support the development of pro-social characteristics, while a hostile environment is likely to lead to anti-social development. Starting from this premise, the main purpose of this work is to determine if and to what degree children’s involvement in Christian practices, acquired as a result of living in a Christian environment, is reflected in their socio-emotional development. This possible association was assessed using Spearman and Pearson correlations and simple linear regression on some religious attributes (as independent variables) and some positive and negative age-specific social manifestations (as dependent variables). The results of the study show that an increased level of religious behaviour could predict a higher chance of positive social behaviour outcomes. Thus, religiosity may be regarded as one possible good influence on children’s development in future adults.

Keywords

• temporal religiosity
• behavioural religiosity
• aggressive behaviour
• social skills
• quality of friendship