Characteristics, Predictors and Outcomes of Religious Deconversion: A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analysis
This study examines the characteristics, predictors, and outcomes of religious deconversion across a wide range of variables. The analytic sample includes n = 4,451 individuals, with a longitudinal subsample of n = 502, drawn from two decades of mixed-method research on faith development, religious...
| Subtitles: | Leaving Religion |
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| Authors: | ; |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2026
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| In: |
The international journal for the psychology of religion
Year: 2026, Volume: 36, Issue: 1, Pages: 97-114 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | This study examines the characteristics, predictors, and outcomes of religious deconversion across a wide range of variables. The analytic sample includes n = 4,451 individuals, with a longitudinal subsample of n = 502, drawn from two decades of mixed-method research on faith development, religious change, and deconversion in Germany and the United States. The longitudinal analysis employs an exposure- and outcome-wide design to assess cross-time associations between self-reported religious deconversion (“deconverted from the religion growing up” vs. “stayed with the religion growing up”) and a range of less-studied predictors and outcomes, measured approximately eight years before and eight years after deconversion. Measures include religious schemata, religious centrality, fundamentalism, pluralism, God representation, mystical experiences, psychological well-being, personality traits, generativity, need for cognition, and intellectual humility. Findings highlight the strong predictive effects of low endorsement of both truth of texts and teachings of one’s own religion and low self-rated religiosity, along with consistently lower scores on all dimensions of religiosity before, during, and after deconversion. Notably, high openness to experience, low extraversion, and low positive relations with others emerged as significant predictors of deconversion, while high need for cognition and low extraversion were identified as outcomes. This study offers evidence for the assumption of the active deconvert and largely confirms the deconversion criteria proposed by Streib and Keller (2004). |
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| ISSN: | 1532-7582 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The international journal for the psychology of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/10508619.2025.2520104 |
