Does Ramadan serve as a naturalistic intervention to promote Muslim American adolescents' daily virtues? Evidence from a three wave experience sampling study.

Religion/spirituality has been linked to virtue development across individuals, but most of this evidence is derived from decontextualized one-time survey studies. We employed a three-wave experience sampling study to examine whether Ramadan heightens Muslim American adolescents' connectedness to Allah, inhibitory self-control, initiatory self-control, patience, and compassion within individuals. Adolescents (N = 202) were prompted to complete three daily surveys for a week before, during, and after Ramadan each. Results indicated that adolescents grew more connected to Allah and exhibited greater inhibitory self-control, initiatory self-control, and patience in their daily lives from pre-Ramadan to Ramadan, with continued elevated effects for initiatory self-control and patience – but not for inhibitory self-control – after Ramadan. In contrast, adolescents reported high levels of daily compassion before and during Ramadan, but lower levels after Ramadan. Our findings emphasized the importance of disentangling within- and between-person effects and have implications for virtue theories and the design of intervention programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]