Religious Conversations and Surface Acting as Predictors of Relational Uncertainty in (Dis)confirming Sibling Relationships

ABSTRACT

This study examined the associations among frequency and comfort of siblings’ religious conversations and their relational uncertainty (RU), as well as the degree to which the associations depended upon surface acting and sibling confirmation (i.e. acceptance and challenge). Participants included 218 young adult siblings who completed an online survey about the sibling with whom they were closest to in age. Results indicated that frequency and comfort of discussing religious topics were inversely associated with sibling RU. After controlling for similarity in religious affiliations and beliefs between siblings, regression models revealed significant two-way interaction effects between surface acting and frequency of discussing religion, as well as between confirmation and both frequency and comfort of discussing religion. Consequently, how family members talk about sensitive topics involving matters of identity divergence may be as important, if not more important, than the content of those conversations.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For a detailed discussion of the conceptual and empirical distinctions between religion and spirituality, please see Zinnbauer et al. (1997). In this study, we were interested in the comfort levels and frequencies with which siblings discussed a variety of both religious topics (e.g., church and attending worship services) and spiritual topics (e.g., God, spirituality, fate, good and evil, life after death). Given that our focus was on discussions of topics rather than on individual practices of religion and/or spirituality, we included both terms in this report. Empirically, previous research has supported the combination of both in measures of frequency and comfort with discussing religious/faith-based/spiritual topics (see McCurry et al., 2012).

2. We wanted to classify and interpret significant interaction effects using Holbert and Park’s (2020) terminology. Thus, we chose to use Aiken and West’s(1991) technique to probe significant interaction effects. Although PROCESS offers the Johnson-Neyman technique for decomposing significant interaction effects, our use of a moderated moderation model precluded point estimates using this technique.

3. Given a significant main effect for sibling challenge but a non-significant main effect for frequency, we chose to decompose the two-way interaction effect by positioning challenge on the x-axis and depicting changes in the relationship between sibling challenge and RU across levels of frequency of discussing religious topics.

4. Here again, we decomposed the two-way interaction effect by positioning sibling acceptance on the x-axis given a significant main effect for acceptance but a non-significant main effect for frequency.

5. Consistent with our decompositions of previous two-way interactions that involved sibling challenge and acceptance, we positioned challenge on the x-axis and depicted changes in challenge across levels of comfort with discussing religious topics.