Programming support to estimation of EMOSA (Epidemic Models of Onset of Social Activities) models as applied to religious attendance of emergent adults.
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Epidemic Models of the Onset of Social Activities (EMOSA Models) have been used in the past to describe behavioral processes that spread within social networks through social influence. Two theoretically distinct methods of social influence are represented within EMOSA models, social contagion (a direct one-to-one interpersonal social influence process) and general diffusion (the kind of social influence that passes through media and other broad cultural channels). Past EMOSA models explain adolescent problem behaviors such as smoking, drinking, precocious sexuality, and delinquency. In the current paper, we adapt the EMOSA framework to model transitions in religious participation during late adolescence and early adulthood. We fit the model to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 survey, based on a U.S. household probability sample spanning 10 years of longitudinal observation, and examine the relative influence of social contagion versus general diffusion. We present several methodological innovations, including EMOSA applications in a new theoretical arena using a three-stage bi-directional model, a Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation approach, graphical innovations to represent different parts of the EMOSA process, and an empirical validation exercise. Results indicate that diffusion processes are dominant during periods of late-adolescent rapid reduction in church attendance, whereas both diffusion and contagion models explain the period of relative stability in church attendance following in early adulthood. Both methodological and substantive implications are discussed.