Religiosity and Dating Relationships: How Individual and Dyadic Religiosity Influence the Dating Relationship Quality Among Indonesian Dating Couples

Abstract

The study is a replication of the previous study conducted by Aragoni et al. (2021) to follow up on the future direction of the study by replicating the study within a new population of Indonesia. Research on how religiosity influences marital quality has been widely addressed, but little research has been conducted on the population of dating couples. Collectivism and religiosity are strongly embedded within the culture of Indonesia, which influence how Indonesian people view interpersonal relationships. Thus, the present study is critical because it addresses how much religiosity influences dating relationship quality among Indonesian dating couples. Religiosity as an independent variable is assessed on two sub-variables: individual religiosity and dyadic religiosity. Dating relationship quality as a dependent variable is measured by three sub-variables: relationship satisfaction, commitment, and negative interaction. Each sub-variable will be measured using appropriate scales in the form of online surveys. The study has a total of 84 participants and it uses a cross-sectional, quantitative approach. The data is analyzed using a multiple linear regression method to determine the relationship between the religiosity variables and the relationship quality variables. The findings suggested that there was no significant association between individual religiosity and relationship quality among Indonesian heterosexual dating couples. On the other hand, there was a significant association between dyadic religiosity and relationship quality among Indonesian heterosexual dating couples as measured by relationship satisfaction, commitment, and negative interaction. The analysis suggested that dyadic religiosity was a more influential predictor than individual religiosity in predicting relationship quality in our samples. Future research should consider conducting the study using a qualitative method and narrative analysis, exploring the moderating effect of individual religiosity on the relationship between dyadic religiosity and relationship quality, and conducting the study with different types of populations (e.g., homosexual communities or Indonesian diverse cultural groups and tribes)