Behavioral Genetic Study of Religiosity and Alcoholism

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although religion and spirituality have always been thought to influence a wide range of human experience, the scientific study of this phenomenon has not kept pace with the growing evidence of its relevance to health, medical, and alcoholism concerns. This application seeks small grant support (R03) for secondary analyses involving data from three large-scale NIAAA-supported twin projects involving adolescent twins and adult twins. Given these data, we can elaborate on recent behavioral- genetic findings that have bearing on the relationship between religion and alcoholism; in particular how religion can impact the transmission and development of alcoholism across generations. The specific aims are: (1) to examine interaction of effects between religion and those variables thought to be genetic precursors to alcoholism and between religion and alcoholism variables per se; (2) to examine the moderating role that religion can play in qualifying the impact of family history of alcoholism on offspring alcoholism and other negative outcomes, and (3) to conduct preliminary examinations relevant to future research directions including (a) the multidimensional nature of religiosity; (b) the relationship between religiosity and other individual difference variables;(c) how religiosity is related to other models of alcoholism etiology; and (d) consideration of developmental issues (each data set utilizes a cohort sequential design) regarding the moderating role of religiosity on development and course of alcoholism and other disorders.