Research Findings

Overview of the Research Findings section of this website

• Five Major Domains. This section of the web site is divided into five major domains of family life - marriage and couple relationships, sexuality within marriage and unions, transition to parenthood, parenting, and divorce. 
• For Better Findings & For Worse Findings. Most of our website is devoted to research that examines specific spiritual beliefs and practices that can be either helpful or harmful for family relationships. In each domain, see the links listed under For Better Findings for findings based on specific questions about ways that spirituality can be helpful. Conversely, see links under For Worse Findings for ways that spirituality can be harmful. 
• General Findings. For each domain, we summarize broad generalizations on the role of religion and spirituality in family life based on questions about a given family member's involvement in organized religion, such as how often a family member attends worship services or says religion is important in his or her daily life. About 75-80% of survey studies rely on these kinds of general questions.