Do Peers Mediate the Association Between Religiosity and the Alcohol Use of Indonesian Muslim Adolescents?

Religious adolescents are less likely than their peers to use alcohol but there is limited understanding of the mechanisms that explain this association. The possibility that involvement with alcohol-using peers mediates the association between tenth-grade religiosity and twelfth-grade alcohol use was explored in this 3-year longitudinal study of 865 16-year-old Indonesian Muslim adolescents. Partial mediation was found for boys but not girls. The absence of significant mediation for girls may be attributable to their low rates of alcohol use or the noninclusion of their older male affiliates in the study. For both girls and boys, there were significant negative pathways from religiosity to subsequent alcohol use. The finding of partial mediation suggests the possibility that causal models explaining how religiosity is associated with alcohol use likely require additional mediators and moderators. These results reveal the potential benefits of facilitating the interaction of Muslim youth with religious peers.