Religion and self-esteem: A study among 13- to 15-year-old students in the UK

This study draws on data provided by 10,792 13- to 15-year-old students from five different parts of the UK (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and London) to test the connection between self-esteem (assessed by the Rosenberg scale) and attitude toward religion (assessed by the Astley-Francis Scale of Attitude toward Theistic Faith) after taking into account personal differences (age and sex) and psychological differences (Eysenck's three dimensional model of personality). The data demonstrate that attitude toward theistic faith adds additional prediction to enhanced levels of self-esteem after taking all other variables into account. The data also highlight a close relationship between self-esteem and personality, where low neuroticism scores are shown to make the strongest contribution in predicting levels of self-esteem among young people.