The longitudinal effects of material security on belief in God in young Americans

The prevalence of religious beliefs and practices is puzzling from the evolutionary viewpoint, but previous research suggested that religious traditions provide cooperative benefits and improve well-being. Seemingly in contrast with this claim are worldwide secularization trends where people disaffiliate from religions and belief in god(s). Theoreticians suggested that diminished pressures on cooperation and well-being no longer motivate individuals to seek religious benefits and pay the participation costs. We investigate this causal claim using the National Study of Youth and Religion dataset, which tracks the development of religiosity among US Christians from adolescence to young adulthood (n = 3 370). Using a general lagged panel methodology, we found that material security in Wave 1 (early adolescence) predicts higher probability of decrease in belief in God in Wave 4 (young adulthood). This result provides support for the hypothesis that participation in religious traditions is associated with living in an insecure socio-ecology, where the systems may still confer benefits onto their members. We conclude with a call for further research using more nuanced measures and larger sample sizes that may provide further insights into the potentially adaptive nature of cultural systems.