The effects of negative peer and media influences on adolescent religiosity.

Many researchers have demonstrated how peer influences can lead to increases in adolescent religiosity, but none have endeavored to examine the effects of media and peer influences that might lead to decreases in adolescent religiosity. Using the nationally representative and longitudinal National Studies of Youth and Religion, this research demonstrates that peer and media influences do indeed have significant effects that lead to decreases in the religiosity of religious adolescents, and often times these effects negate the peer influences that other researchers have found to increase religiosity. This paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for various theories and perspectives in religious transmission and adolescent religiosity.