Religiosity and Decision-Making

<p>The impact of growing up religious has not been well documented. Understanding of individuals’ relationship with religion and spirituality has been primarily focused on contemporaneous experiences. Limited by small sample sizes and anecdotal data, research has not indicated much about the impacts of levels of religiosity on individuals’ functioning. Utilizing an ecological rationality framework, based within a larger systems perspective, this study used logistical regression to infer impacts of the level of religiosity during the formative years on individual decision-making. This study used a national sample of secondary data and sought to determine if decision-making tendencies could be grouped predictably into seeking approval from authority figures or God and decisions that benefit the self, based on the level of religiosity at a formative age. The results of three logistic regressions to determine how reliably the level of religiosity during formative years predicted decision-making yielded statistical significance, demonstrating that formative levels of religiosity have a lasting impact on decision-making.</p>