Citation

Sussman S, Skara S, Calice P, Hoffman B, Dent CW. J. Appl. Soc. Psychol. 2005; 35(1): 80-99.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1559-1816.2005.tb02094.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a 1-year prospective study of violence perpetration, drug use, and spirituality among continuation high school youth. Spirituality was found to predict later violence perpetration and drug use as a single predictor. However, it failed to predict violence or drug use in models that also entered 6 other variables; particularly, baseline levels of violence and drug use, and morality of drug use. It is possible that current measures of spirituality predict later violence perpetration and drug use as a result of tapping attitudes about morality. Controlling for baseline spirituality, male gender, low morality of drug use, violence perpetration, and drug use predicted later spirituality. Spirituality appears to be affected by drug use and violence, but not the converse. The protective influence of spirituality is not supported, at least as currently measured.