A causal model on adolescents' high-risk behaviors based on religious beliefs and self-compassion mediated by emotion regulation and social support

High risk behaviors are behaviors that endanger the health and well-being of adolescents. The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of emotion regulation and social support in the relationship between religious beliefs and self-compassion with tendency to risky behaviors in adolescents. This research is a correlational study conducted in the form of path analysis. The population included all high school male students in Tehran, ۲۲۰ of whom were selected using multistage cluster sampling. To collect data, Sirajzadeh (۲۰۰۷) Religious Attitudes Questionnaire, Tendency to High-Risk Behaviors of ZadehMohammadi et al. (۲۰۰۸), Perceived Social Support Questionnaire by Vaux et al. (۱۹۸۶), Self-compassion Questionnaire by Neff et al. (۲۰۰۳) and emotion regulation by Garnefski et. al (۱۹۹۹) were used. Finally, the data were analyzed using SPSS/Amos version ۲۵. The results of Pearson correlation test showed that there is a significant correlation between religious beliefs and tendency to high-risk behaviors (r=۰.۲۱; p= ۰.۰۱). Also, the final model of the study showed that religious beliefs mediate social support (β=-۰.۲۳ and negative emotion regulation (β= ۰.۵۳) to explain almost half of the variance of high-risk behaviors. The findings also showed that its fit indices were at the desired level (RMSEA= ۰.۰۷; GFI= ۰.۹۹; CFI= ۰.۹۹; NFI= ۰.۹۲). Based on the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that religious beliefs can be provided by providing social support and effective strategies to regulate the emotion of trauma versus the tendency to high-risk behaviors of adolescents.

Keywords:

religious beliefs , Risky Behaviors , Social support Compassion , emotion regulation