Relationships Among Religiosity, Impulsivity, and Delayed Gratification in Brazilian Adults

Religiousness generally favors self-control and is associated with fewer occurrences of impulsive behavior. Religions often favor delayed rewards as this factor is directly linked to religious principles and dogma. We aimed to analyze the possible association between religiosity, impulsivity, and delayed gratification in Brazilian adults. The study sample consisted of 538 adults evaluated using instruments validated for virtual platform administration through which aspects such as religiosity, impulsiveness, delayed gratification, mental health, personality, and socioeconomic conditions were assessed. We determined the associations among variables through Pearson correlation and regression analysis and found significant correlations between general impulsivity and organized religiosity, nonorganized religiosity, and intrinsic religiosity. We also found significant but weak correlations between gratification delay and religiosity categories. The results of our study suggest that people who are more religious are generally less impulsive and more capable of delaying gratification, although it is a slight correlation. Some mechanisms by which religiosity might be connected to self-control are discussed.