THE COVARIATION OF RELIGION AND POLITICS DURING THE TRANSITION TO YOUNG ADULTHOOD - CHALLENGING GLOBAL IDENTITY ASSUMPTIONS

This study was undertaken to examine the relation between religion and politics in terms of identity and beliefs, as well as the relations a mong identity and beliefs, during the transition to young adulthood. D ata were obtained from 209 college students using self-administered qu estionnaires. Constructs included religious and political identity dif fusion, foreclosure, moratorium and achievement, as well as intrinsic religiosity, church/temple importance, Christian orthodoxy, political involvement, and faith in government. Correlational analyses revealed that the only significant relations between religion and politics was for identity foreclosure and moratorium, and that none of the religiou s beliefs were significantly correlated with political beliefs. Hierar chical regression analyses, controlling for gender and year in college , indicated that religious diffusion proved to be the most powerful (n egative) predictor of religious beliefs; similarly, political diffusio n was the most powerful (negative) predictor of political involvement. Religious achievement was associated with higher levels of intrinsic religiosity. The findings provide additional validity for the construc t of identity diffusion. At the same time, the inconsistent and low co variation between religious and political identity suggests that focus on global identity has limited utility. (C) 1997 The Association for Professionals in Services for Adolescents.