Let there be light
Scientific faith: Belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety
Miguel Farias et al.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Growing evidence indicates that religious belief helps individuals to cope with stress and anxiety. But is this effect specific to supernatural beliefs, or is it a more general function of belief - including belief in science? We developed a measure of belief in science and conducted two experiments in which we manipulated stress and existential anxiety. In Experiment 1, we assessed rowers about to compete (high-stress condition) and rowers at a training session (low-stress condition). As predicted, rowers in the high-stress group reported greater belief in science. In Experiment 2, participants primed with mortality (vs. participants in a control condition) reported greater belief in science. In both experiments, belief in science was negatively correlated with religiosity. Thus, some secular individuals may use science as a form of "faith" that helps them to deal with stressful and anxiety-provoking situations.
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The Impact of Repealing Sunday Closing Laws on Educational Attainment
Dara Lee
Journal of Human Resources, Spring 2013, Pages 286-310
Abstract:
Adolescents face daily tradeoffs between human capital investment, labor, and leisure. This paper exploits state variation in the repeal of Sunday closing laws to examine the impact of a distinct and plausibly exogenous rise in the quantity of competing diversions available to youth on their educational attainment. The results suggest that the repeals led to a significant decline in both years of education and the probability of high school completion. I explore increased employment and risky behaviors as potential mechanisms. Further, I find a corresponding decline of the repeals on adult wages.
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God and Governance: Development, State Capacity, and the Regulation of Religion
David Buckley & Luis Felipe Mantilla
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, June 2013, Pages 328-348
Abstract:
In this article, we propose a new approach to an old question: How does development affect religion-state relations? We argue that because development increases states' ability to effectively formulate and implement policy, it will be associated with greater state regulation of religion. This stands in contrast to predominant theories that examine development's negative impact on individual religiosity while largely overlooking the impact that development may have on state institutions. We test our theory using data drawn from over 160 countries, and demonstrate that the effect of economic development on state regulation of religion is consistently positive, substantively significant, and robust to alternative measurements and the inclusion of a broad range of controls. Statistical analysis also demonstrates that the correlation between development and state regulation of religion is primarily a result of economic development's impact on state capacity, rather than social dislocation or improved coordination by religious communities. Incorporating state capacity recasts the study of religious regulation-and suggests that economic growth is unlikely to take religion off the political agenda.
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Activating Christian religious concepts increases intolerance of ambiguity and judgment certainty
Christina Sagioglou & Matthias Forstmann
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does living in a society in which one is frequently exposed to reminders of its Christian foundations shape one's basic cognitions and behaviors? Following contextual priming logic, being exposed to Christian religious content should render associated norms accessible. One prototypical Christian norm is the reliance on dichotomous moral categories such as right vs. wrong (virtuous vs. sinful). If Christian primes indeed activate this normative structure, it should manifest itself in an increased ambiguity intolerance. We tested this reasoning in five studies. Specifically, we demonstrated that semantically activating Christian concepts increases self-reported ambiguity intolerance (Study 1), preference for a non-ambiguous (vs. ambiguous) visual stimulus (Study 2), as well as judgment certainty as means to reduce experienced ambiguity (Studies 3a & 3b). Finally, we extended our laboratory findings to real-life environments by showing that individuals exposed to a cathedral (vs. a place with civic buildings) reported increased ambiguity intolerance (Study 4).
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Religious Discrimination and International Crises: International Effects of Domestic Inequality
Özgür Özdamar & Yasemin Akbaba
Foreign Policy Analysis, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper explores religious discrimination against ethnic groups and foreign policy crisis linkages as part of the broader foreign policy approaches developed by McGowan and Shapiro, and James and Özdamar. Informed by the literature suggesting that domestic policies of repression and inequality may result in similar patterns of behavior internationally, this study tests whether states characterized by high levels of religious discrimination against ethnoreligious minorities are more likely to initiate or become involved in foreign policy crises with other states in general. A broad range of data sources, including an independently collected religious discrimination index, are used to test the hypothesized relationship between religious discrimination and international crisis during the period 1990-2003. The results suggest that religious discrimination is an important predictor of initiating and becoming involved in international crises.
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Angus Deaton & Arthur Stone
American Economic Review, May 2013, Pages 591-597
Abstract:
We consider two happiness puzzles. First, many studies show that only relative income matters for well-being. Yet the Gallup data for the United States and from the rest of the world show no such result, at least for life evaluation. There may be relative income effects in hedonic well-being though other interpretations are available. Second, more religious people typically report higher experiential well-being but more religious places have worse well-being on average, both across US states and across countries. More religious states and counties in the US also have worse murder rates, deaths from cardiovascular disease and from cancer.
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Religion and Medicalization: The Case of ADHD
Kati Li
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, June 2013, Pages 309-327
Abstract:
As a medicalized condition, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) sparks considerable public controversy. Previous research has highlighted the importance of examining the factors that influence attitudes toward ADHD. This article examines an understudied factor, religion, and its relationship with ADHD attitudes. Using data from the 2002 General Social Survey National Stigma Study-Children, this research finds that compared to the rest of the population, evangelical Christians are less likely to view ADHD as a real disease and to believe children with ADHD should be treated with medication. Results also demonstrate that evangelicals are more likely to think doctors are overmedicating children with common behavior problems and to think medication prevents families from working out problems themselves. On the other hand, church attendance is unrelated to beliefs about ADHD treatment but is positively associated with thinking ADHD is a real disease. These findings add new insights to the existing literature on religion and medicalization.
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Tim Verhoeven
Church History, June 2013, Pages 293-316
Abstract:
The decades before the Civil War witnessed a series of battles over the meaning and legal status of the American Sabbath. Scholarship has focused on the Sabbatarian movement, a cluster of evangelical churches that sought to institutionalize the Sunday Sabbath. This article takes a new approach by investigating the anti-Sabbatarian movement. In a series of controversies, from Sunday mail in the Jacksonian era to the running of Sunday streetcars on the eve of the Civil War, anti-Sabbatarians rallied against Sabbath laws as an infringement of civil and religious liberty. Though diverse in orientation, anti-Sabbatarians agreed that religion and politics should be kept apart, and that the United States was not, in constitutional terms, a Christian nation. A study of anti-Sabbatarianism is thus of rich significance for the history of Church-State relations in the United States.
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Uncertainty avoidance moderates the link between faith and subjective well-being around the world
Aleksandr Kogan et al.
Journal of Positive Psychology, May/June 2013, Pages 242-248
Abstract:
Theorists have suggested that faith in God can play an important role in the relief of anxiety associated with uncertainty. Yet little is known about the impact of national differences in uncertainty avoidance - the degree to which uncertainty is threatening to members of a culture - on the relationship between faith and subjective well-being. In the present study, we investigated faith's relationships with psychological well-being in the World and European Values Surveys for nearly 240,000 people in 92 countries, and the role national uncertainty avoidance plays in modifying these relationships. We found that faith was positively related to subjective well-being around the world overall, but this relationship was moderated by uncertainty avoidance. In particular, the relationship between faith and well-being was strongest in nations characterized by the highest levels of uncertainty avoidance. Our results suggest that cultural norms of uncertainty avoidance play a role in determining faith's role in psychological functioning.
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A Religious Profile of American Entrepreneurs
Kevin Dougherty et al.
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, June 2013, Pages 401-409
Abstract:
The entrepreneur is a celebrated figure in American society. These innovative risk-takers hold an influential place in the economy and in popular culture. Substantial research has gone into identifying characteristics associated with these individuals, but research on entrepreneurs and religion is surprisingly sparse and inconsistent. Using national survey data, we examine religious affiliation, belief, and behavior for Americans who have started or are trying to start a business. American entrepreneurs appear no different than nonentrepreneurs in religious affiliation, belief in God, or religious service attendance. They do tend to see God as more personal, pray more frequently, and are more likely to attend a place of worship that encourages business activity. A discussion of implications concludes the research note.
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The Sacralization of the Individual: Human Rights and the Abolition of the Death Penalty
Matthew Mathias
American Journal of Sociology, March 2013, Pages 1246-1283
Abstract:
In the latter half of the 20th century, countries abolished the death penalty en masse. What factors help to explain this global trend? Conventional analyses explain abolition by focusing primarily on state level political processes. This article contributes to these studies by analyzing world cultural factors that lend to the abolition trend. The main finding in three separate models on full, ordinary, and de facto cumulative measures of abolition show that the global sacralization of the individual, measured as the institutionalization of the human rights regime, represents a significant driver of states' abolition. Countries' predominant religion is also found to significantly affect the probability of abolition: predominantly Catholic nation-states are most likely to abolish the death penalty, and predominantly Muslim nation-states are least likely to abolish. These findings provide evidence for world cultural factors that structure the abolition trend globally.
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An Afterlife Capital Model of Religious Choice
Derek Pyne
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, August 2013, Pages 32-44
Abstract:
This paper uses a modified version of the afterlife capital model to study religious choice. It compares a religious monopoly with various duopolies. The duopolies involve both exclusivist and nonexclusivist religions. Contrary to the supply side literature, it finds that religious choice does not necessarily increase religiosity and in some cases decreases it. It also finds that adopting exclusivist doctrines is a dominant strategy for a religion. Possible extensions of the framework to other issues in the economics of religion are also discussed.
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Jochen Hirschle
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, June 2013, Pages 410-424
Abstract:
This research note contributes to an evaluation of the validity of secularization theory by studying the relationship between economic modernization and patterns of religious change. Both the disenchantment narrative of Berger and Weber and the existential security perspective of Inglehart hypothesize that economic development should be accompanied by a weakening of religious values. Using macro-level panel regressions, my analysis reveals that while economic growth is directly associated with diminishing church attendance rates, it is not directly associated with a decline in belief. The relation between economic growth and religious decline is therefore not primarily mediated by a "secularization of consciousness." Findings instead indicate that economic prosperity leads to a change in consumption patterns on the part of individuals due to increased income and availability of alternative, secular opportunities to meet needs previously fulfilled by traditional religion. A decline in religious belief may occur as a secondary consequence of this behavioral change, since diminishing worship attendance rates reduce the influence of religion on value socialization.
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Witchcraft Beliefs and Witch Hunts
Niek Koning
Human Nature, June 2013, Pages 158-181
Abstract:
This paper proposes an interdisciplinary explanation of the cross-cultural similarities and evolutionary patterns of witchcraft beliefs. It argues that human social dilemmas have led to the evolution of a fear system that is sensitive to signs of deceit and envy. This was adapted in the evolutionary environment of small foraging bands but became overstimulated by the consequences of the Agricultural Revolution, leading to witch paranoia. State formation, civilization, and economic development abated the fear of witches and replaced it in part with more collectivist forms of social paranoia. However, demographic-economic crises could rekindle fear of witches - resulting, for example, in the witch craze of early modern Europe. The Industrial Revolution broke the Malthusian shackles, but modern economic growth requires agricultural development as a starting point. In sub-Saharan Africa, witch paranoia has resurged because the conditions for agricultural development are lacking, leading to fighting for opportunities and an erosion of intergenerational reciprocity.
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The longitudinal relationships between adolescent religious values and personality
Lee Huuskes, Joseph Ciarrochi & Patrick Heaven
Journal of Research in Personality, October 2013, Pages 483-487
Abstract:
This research examined the longitudinal relationships between personality and religious values. High school students in Grades 10 (381 males, 384 females; mean age 15.40 yrs.) and Grade 12 (195 males, 215 females; mean age = 17.02 yrs.) completed personality and religious measures as part of the Wollongong Youth Study. Structural equation modelling (SEM) indicated that religious values at Time 1 predicted an increase in Agreeableness and a decrease in Psychoticism at Time 2. These effects were confirmed to be independent of each other when the SEMs included both Agreeableness and Psychoticism. Results are discussed with reference to the implications of religious values for the development of personality.
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Samuel Perry
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, June 2013, Pages 425-442
Abstract:
Religious factors have been shown to influence whites' attitudes toward interracial marriage, but this relationship has yet to be studied in depth. This study examines how religious affiliation, beliefs, practices, and congregational composition affect whites' attitudes toward interracial marriage with African Americans, Asians, and Latinos. Employing data from Wave 2 of the Baylor Religion Survey, I estimate ordered logit regression models to examine the influence of religious factors on whites' attitudes toward racial exogamy, net of sociodemographic controls. Analyses reveal that, relative to evangelicals, religiously unaffiliated whites report greater support of intermarriage with all minority groups. Biblical literalists are less likely to support interracial marriage to Asians and Latinos. However, whites who frequently engage in devotional religious practices are more likely to support interracial marriage with all racial groups, as are whites who attend multiracial congregations. My findings suggest that the relationship between religion and whites' attitudes toward racial exogamy is more complex than previously thought and that the influence of religious practices and congregational composition should not be overlooked.
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Emotional intelligence: What is it, and do Anglican clergy have it?
Kelvin John Randall
Mental Health, Religion & Culture, forthcoming
Abstract:
The development of the term "emotional intelligence" (EI), its conceptualisation and three attempts to measure it are outlined. The Assessing Emotions Scale is used as part of a longitudinal study with Anglican clergy in England and Wales in their 14th year in ordained ministry. Clergy by their role are expected to be pastors, counsellors and visitors. Contrary to expectations, the clergy scored lower on EI than any other group reported by the authors of the Assessing Emotions Scale.
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Philip Schwadel
Sociological Forum, June 2013, Pages 261-282
Abstract:
I use repeated cross-sectional survey data spanning the years 1974 to 2010 to examine changes in Americans' views of prayer and reading the Bible in public schools. Results from logistic regression models show that support for prayer and reading the Bible in public schools was relatively high in the 1970s and that differences between evangelical Protestants and both Catholics and mainline Protestants grew from the 1970s to the first decade of the twenty-first century. Hierarchical age-period-cohort models demonstrate that changes in support for school prayer are due to both period and birth cohort changes, that baby boom cohorts are relatively likely to oppose prayer and reading the Bible in school, and that growing differences in support for prayer and reading the Bible in school between evangelical Protestants and both Catholics and mainline Protestants are predominantly due to changes across birth cohorts. Although religious liberals and conservatives have become more alike in many ways, evangelical Protestants have diverged from affiliates of other major religious traditions in their support for prayer in public schools. These results are relevant to debates regarding the social impact of religious affiliation, generational differences, and Americans' views of the role of religion in the public sphere.
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Exploration of Charity toward Busking (Street Performance) as a Function of Religion
John Lemay & Larry Bates
Psychological Reports, April 2013, Pages 578-592
Abstract:
To examine conceptions of religion and charity in a new venue - busking (street performance) - 103 undergraduate students at a regional university in the southeastern U.S. completed a battery of surveys regarding religion, and attitudes and behaviors toward busking. For those 85 participants who had previously encountered a busker, stepwise regression was used to predict increased frequency of giving to buskers. The best predictive model of giving to buskers consisted of three variables including less experienced irritation toward buskers, prior experience with giving to the homeless, and lower religious fundamentalism.