TruthBook Religious News Blog

A new survey finds that 80 percent of American teenagers believe they are "ethically prepared" for life in the real world but 40 percent believe they have to "break the rules" to succeed.

The poll of 750 teens conducted by Junior Achievement and Deloitte doesn't bode well for religious leaders. It shows that only 3 percent of teens see members of the clergy (pastor, priest, rabbi or imam) as "role models."

In contrast, most teens (54 percent) see their parents as role models, followed by friends (13 percent), teachers or coaches (6 percent) and brother or sister (5 percent). About one in 10 teens (11 percent) say they have no role models.

Key findings of the survey:

•80 percent of teens either somewhat or strongly agree that they are prepared to make ethical business decisions when they join the workforce, yet more than a third (38 percent) think that they have to break the rules at school to succeed.

•More than one in four teens (27 percent) think behaving violently is sometimes, often or always acceptable. Twenty percent of respondents said they had personally behaved violently toward another person in the past year, and 41 percent reported a friend had done so.

•Nearly half (49 percent) of those who say they are ethically prepared believe that lying to parents and guardians is acceptable, and 61 percent have done so in the past year.

•Teens feel more accountable to themselves (86 percent) than they do to their parents or guardians (52 percent), their friends (41 percent) or society (33 percent).

•Only about half (54 percent) cite their parents as role models. Most of those who don't cite their parents as role models are turning to their friends or said they didn't have a role model.

•Only 25 percent said they would be "very likely" to reveal knowledge of unethical behavior in the workplace.

"If teens lack accountability to others," Grocholski said, "the data suggests that their choices may be driven purely by selfinterest and not by interest in the greater good. . . . Teens seem to be experiencing a sense of ethical confusion and relativism, an endemic ethical attitude of 'the ends justify the means.'"

That attitude is compounded by the absence of adult role models, "which can leave a vacuum of ethical guidance as young people enter adulthood," Grocholski said. "With a significant number of teens reporting they don't have an adult role model for ethical behavior, the data raises even more questions about why adults are not viewed as role models and what can be done to fill the gap."

This story is written by Jerry L. Van Marter

Labels: ethics, Jerry L. Van Marter, Junior Achievement, success, teenagers

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Friday, January 02, 2009

Religion may have evolved because of its ability to help people exercise self-control

Public release date: 30-Dec-2008
Marie Guma-Diaz

A study by a University of Miami psychologist reveals that religion facilitates the exercise of self-control and attainment of long-term goals

CORAL GABLES, FL (December 30, 2008)—Self-control is critical for success in life, and a new study by University of Miami professor of Psychology Michael McCullough finds that religious people have more self-control than do their less religious counterparts. These findings imply that religious people may be better at pursuing and achieving long-term goals that are important to them and their religious groups. This, in turn, might help explain why religious people tend to have lower rates of substance abuse, better school achievement, less delinquency, better health behaviors, less depression, and longer lives.

In this research project, McCullough evaluated 8 decades worth of research on religion, which has been conducted in diverse samples of people from around the world. He found persuasive evidence from a variety of domains within the social sciences, including neuroscience, economics, psychology, and sociology, that religious beliefs and religious behaviors are capable of encouraging people to exercise self-control and to more effectively regulate their emotions and behaviors, so that they can pursue valued goals. The research paper, which summarizes the results of their review of the existing science, will be published in the January 2009 issue of Psychological Bulletin.

Among the most interesting conclusions that the research team drew were the following:

* Religious rituals such as prayer and meditation affect the parts of the human brain that are most important for self-regulation and self-control;
* When people view their goals as "sacred," they put more energy and effort into pursuing those goals, and therefore, are probably more effective at attaining them;
* Religious lifestyles may contribute to self-control by providing people with clear standards for their behavior, by causing people to monitor their own behavior more closely, and by giving people the sense that God is watching their behavior;
* The fact that religious people tend to be higher in self-control helps explain why religious people are less likely to misuse drugs and alcohol and experience problems with crime and delinquency.

Among the study's more practical implications is that religious people may have at their disposal a set of unique psychological resources for adhering to their New Year's Resolutions in the year to come.

Labels: Marie Guma-Diaz, Michael McCullough, religion, religious evolution, self-control, success