TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2015//
TI  - Religiousness and aggression in adolescents: the mediating roles of self-control and compassion
JO  - Aggressive behavior
A1  - Shepperd, James A.
A1  - Miller, Wendi A.
A1  - Smith, Colin Tucker
SP  - 608
EP  - 621
VL  - 41
IS  - 6
N2  - Although people have used religion to justify aggression, evidence suggests that greater religiousness corresponds with less aggression. We explored two explanations for the religion-aggression link. First, most major religions teach self-control (e.g., delaying gratification, resisting temptation), which diminishes aggression. Second, most major religions emphasize compassionate beliefs and behavior (i.e., perspective taking, forgiveness, a broader love of humanity) that are incompatible with aggression. We tested whether self-control and compassion mediated the relationship between religion and aggression (direct and indirect) in a longitudinal study of 1,040 adolescents in the United States. Structural equation analyses revealed that self-control and compassion together completely mediated the religion-aggression relationship for both types of aggression. Aggr. Behav. 9999:1-14, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0096-140X
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ab.21600
ID  - ref1
ER  -