Viewing R-rated movies leads to decreased church attendance and lessens importance of faith among young people, but it does not influence whether they have doubts about their beliefs, a new study has reported.
According to Phil Davignon, a doctoral candidate in sociology in Baylor's College of Arts and Sciences, watching R-rated movies also did not have any effect on their "selective acceptance" of their faith - that is, whether they thought it was all right to "pick and choose" teachings without accepting the faith as a whole.
The study analyzed data from more than 2,000 adolescents, young adults and their parents who responded to the 2003, 2005 and 2007-2008 waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion.
In the first wave, all respondents were adolescents between ages 13 and 17, but some entered young adulthood in the subsequent waves.
The survey included individuals with varying degrees of faith. Regardless of the degree of faith, most respondents viewed at least some R-rated movies.
Only 13.2 percent who indicated that their faith is "extremely important" to them claimed that none of the movies they watch are R-rated, while nearly 21 percent of those whose faith was "extremely important" said that most movies they view are rated R. Of those whose faith was "very important," 31 percent claimed that most of the movies they view are rated R.
Davignon said that while those percentages are lower than those whose faith is "not at all important," it still represents a sizable percentage of the respondents whose faith is important to them.
The study has been published online in the Review of Religious Research.
