The Childhood Roots of Our Adult Spiritual Habits

Have you ever wondered why some adults turn to sacred texts — whether the Bible, the Quran, the Vedas, or others — while others don't? This study asked over 200,000 people across 22 countries about their childhood experiences and their current habits of reading or listening to religious literature. The researchers looked at 13 different factors from when participants were around 12 years old.

The simple act of attending religious services as a child is the strongest predictor of a person's private spiritual reading later in life.

What they found was striking. The single strongest predictor was whether someone attended religious services as a child. People who went at least once a week were about two and a half times more likely to engage with sacred texts as adults compared to those who never attended. But the story doesn't end there.

The study also found that people who had a positive relationship with their father, reported excellent health as a child, or experienced abuse or felt like an outsider growing up were also more likely to turn to sacred texts later in life. This suggests that both nurturing experiences and painful ones can lead people toward religious reading — perhaps for comfort, meaning, or coping. Interestingly, the quality of the relationship with one's mother and the family's financial situation showed little connection to adult religious reading when averaged across all countries. Women and older adults were also more likely to read or listen to sacred texts. The patterns varied quite a bit from country to country, reminding us that culture and context matter deeply in how childhood shapes our spiritual lives.