Religiousness, Spiritual Seeking, and Authoritarianism: Findings from a Longitudinal Study |
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| Authors: | PAUL WINK MICHELE DILLON ADRIENNE PRETTYMAN |
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| Institution: | Paul Wink is Professor, Department of Psychology, Wellesley College, Wellesley.; Michele Dillon is Professor, Department of Sociology, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824. E-mail:; Adrienne Prettyman is a student at Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA 02481. |
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| Abstract: | We use long-term longitudinal data from a sample (N = 155) of older age mainline Protestants, Catholics, and a small number of conservative Protestants to investigate the relations among church-centered religiousness, spiritual seeking, and authoritarianism. In late adulthood, religiousness was related positively, and spiritual seeking was related negatively, to authoritarianism; these relations held even after excluding conservative Protestants and controlling for education, gender, age cohort, and personal flexibility. We find a similar pattern using measures of religiousness, spiritual seeking, and control variables scored in early adulthood, a time interval of close to 40 years. |
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