Religiousness, Spiritual Seeking, and Authoritarianism: Findings from a Longitudinal Study

We use long-term longitudinal data from a sample (N = 155) of older age mainline Protestants, Catholics, and a small number of conservative Protestants to investigate the relations among church-centered religiousness, spiritual seeking, and authoritarianism. In late adulthood, religiousness was related positively, and spiri seeking was related negatively, to authoritarianism; these relations held even after excluding conservative Protestants and controlling for education, gender age cohort, and personal flexibility. We find a similar pattern using measures of religiousness, spiritual seeking, and control variables scored in early adulthood, a time interval of close to 40 years.