Unbelievable
Negative Stereotypes Cause Christians to Underperform in and Disidentify With Science
Kimberly Rios et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite Christians being a religious majority in the United States, relatively few pursue higher education and careers in science. Our studies show that stereotypes about Christians being less competent in science than other groups are recognized by both Christians and non-Christians and are openly endorsed by non-Christians (Study 1). Our studies further demonstrate that when these stereotypes become salient, Christians are less interested in and identified with science (Study 2) and underperform on science-relevant tasks (Studies 3–5), compared to non-Christians. Even subtle contextual cues that bear more or less relevance to science are sufficient to compromise Christians’ scientific task performance, particularly among the highly religious (Study 5). When these stereotypes are explicitly removed, however, performance differences between Christians and non-Christians disappear. These results suggest that Christians’ awareness of the negative societal stereotypes about their group’s scientific competence may be partially responsible for the underperformance and underrepresentation of Christians in scientific fields.
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Islam, Inequality and Pre-Industrial Comparative Development
Stelios Michalopoulos, Alireza Naghavi & Giovanni Prarolo
NBER Working Paper, August 2015
Abstract:
This study explores the interaction between trade and geography in shaping the Islamic economic doctrine. We build a model where an unequal distribution of land quality in presence of trade opportunities conferred differential gains from trade across regions, fostering predatory behavior by groups residing in the poorly endowed territories. We show that in such an environment it was mutually beneficial to institute an economic system of income redistribution featuring income transfers in return for safe passage to conduct trade. A commitment problem, however, rendered a merely static redistribution scheme unsustainable. Islam developed a set of dynamic redistributive rules that were self-enforcing, in regions where arid lands dominated the landscape. While such principles fostered the expansion of trade within the Muslim world they limited the accumulation of wealth by the commercial elite, shaping the economic trajectory of Islamic lands in the pre-industrial era.
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"Give us a Sign of Your Presence": Paranormal Investigation as a Spiritual Practice
Marc Eaton
Sociology of Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
The recent proliferation of ghost hunting television shows reflects the broad public interest in what participants refer to as “paranormal investigation.” Currently, over 3,000 paranormal investigation teams exist in the United States, and more exist worldwide. Paranormal investigators use a wide variety of investigative methods in their attempts to find evidence of ghosts and, therefore, life after death. Based on three years of participant observation and 32 interviews with paranormal investigators, this article argues that paranormal investigation functions as a spiritual practice for participants. Investigators' motives, methods, and the meanings they attribute to investigating are all imbued with spiritual significance. For some investigators the practice helps validate existing religious beliefs, while for others it prompts a spiritual transformation. Many participants rely upon conventional religious or New Age beliefs to interpret experiences during investigations, but even those who primarily rely upon science and technology find the practice spiritually meaningful.
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Nicolas Bottan & Ricardo Perez-Truglia
Journal of Public Economics, September 2015, Pages 106–119
Abstract:
We study how the U.S. Catholic clergy abuse scandals affected religious participation, religious beliefs, and pro-social behavior. To estimate the causal effects of the scandals on various outcomes, we conduct an event-study analysis that exploits the fine distribution of the scandals over space and time. First, a scandal causes a significant and long-lasting decline in religious participation in the zip code where it occurs. Second, the decline in religious participation does not generate a statistically significant decline in religious beliefs, pro-social beliefs, and some commonly used measures of pro-social behavior. This evidence is consistent with the view that changes in religious participation during adulthood may have limited or no effect on deep beliefs and values. Third, the scandals cause a long-lasting decline in charitable contributions. Indeed, the decline in charitable giving is an order of magnitude larger than the direct costs of the scandals to the Catholic churches (e.g., lawsuits). If we assume that the scandals affect charitable giving only through the decline in religious participation, our estimates would suggest that the strong cross-sectional correlation between religious participation and charitable giving has the presumed direction of causality.
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Between consumer demand and Islamic law: The evolution of Islamic credit cards in Turkey
Murat Çokgezen & Timur Kuran
Journal of Comparative Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The elimination of interest from financial transactions has been a salient goal of Islamization movements around the world. Its proponents have had to balance this objective, which they claim to draw from Islamic law (sharia), against consumer demand for convenient products. In general they have opted to accommodate consumer demand, but surreptitiously, using legal ruses to disguise their compromises. Turkey's experience with credit cards offers a revealing case of the obfuscation in question. Having denounced credit cards as un-Islamic, Turkey's Islamic banks have all proceeded to issue credit cards of their own in order to remain competitive with their openly interest-friendly, conventional rivals. With local variations, the Turkish pattern resembles that of other markets where Islamic credit cards have made inroads. In Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, too, Islamic credit cards function like those of the conventional banks with which they compete for customers. The “Islamic” features of Islamic credit cards amount to branding. Contrary to the claims of their proponents, they do not involve fundamental financial innovations.
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Blessed be the Children: A Case–Control Study of Sexual Abusers in the Catholic Church
Cynthia Calkins et al.
Behavioral Sciences & the Law, August 2015, Pages 580–594
Abstract:
Individuals working in churches and other youth-serving institutions have a unique level of access to children, yet the problem of sexual abuse in institutional settings has received scant research attention. To address this gap, we analyzed data from a large sample of clergy (N = 1,121) and applied a social–ecological model of offending to identify risk factors for sexual abuse perpetration. Using a case–control study design that compared clergy sexual abusers with three control groups of clergy, this study focuses specifically on individual-, relationship-, and community-level factors associated with a higher risk of abuse in professional populations. Findings revealed that clergy sexual abusers tended to have more truncated pre-seminary dating histories, and that their dating and sexual partners were more likely to have been male than female. Self-reported sexual abuse history was associated with a greater likelihood of sexual abuse perpetration among clergy. Clergy abusers tended to be more involved with youth and adolescents in their ministries; however, they were observed to relate less well to youth and adolescents than their clergy counterparts. Given widespread changes in our cultural understanding of abuse as well as more specific changes in the organizational approach to seminary education, these differences underscore the role that youth-serving institutions and society can have in the primary prevention of child sexual abuse.
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Kathryn Johnson, Adam Cohen & Morris Okun
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, forthcoming
Abstract:
One prominent theory is that prosociality is promoted by the belief in an authoritarian God. Building upon this theory, we developed a theoretical model in which beliefs about the self and the world and volunteer motives account for differential effects of benevolent and authoritarian God representations on secular volunteerism (benefiting those outside the family or religious group). This model was tested with undergraduate (Study 1) and community samples (Study 2) of Christian theists. In support of our model, representations of a benevolent God were positively associated with a benevolent self-identity and a moral obligation, with a significant total positive indirect effect on secular volunteerism via internal motivations. In contrast, representations of an authoritarian God were associated with a low benevolent self-identity and a significant total negative indirect effect on secular volunteerism. The effects of God representations on volunteerism via religious obligation and external motivation (eternal rewards) were inconsistent across samples.
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Why Churches Need Free-riders: Religious Capital Formation and Religious Group Survival
Michael McBride
Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, October 2015, Pages 77–87
Abstract:
Prevailing theory claims that churches thrive when they overcome the free-rider problem. However, this paper argues that religious organizations need free-riders in a dynamic setting. If individuals’ contributions to congregations increase as their exposure to religion increases, then allowing potential members to free-ride temporarily may increase future membership and contribution levels. Free-riders thus comprise a risky but necessary investment by the church. Strict churches screen out riskier investments yet still allow some free-riding, while ultra-strict churches screen out all but members’ children. This new theory yields predictions consistent with stylized empirical facts.
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A Jewish American Monster: Stanley Kubrick, Anti-Semitism and Lolita (1962)
Nathan Abrams
Journal of American Studies, August 2015, Pages 541-556
Abstract:
This article presents a case study of the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, considering how his films can be considered an emotional response to the Holocaust, the legacy of European anti-Semitism, and stereotypes of the Jewish American woman. It will argue that there are various clues in Kubrick's films which produce Jewish moments; that is, where, through a complementary directing and acting strategy, in particular one of misdirection, the viewer is given the possibility of “reading Jewish,” albeit not with certainty, for Jewishness is “textually submerged.” Its focus is Kubrick's 1962 adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (1955), in particular the character of Charlotte Haze, played by Shelley Winters, especially in light of Kubrick's choice of casting for the role, and Winters's subsequent performance of it. It will conclude that Holocaust and anti-Semitic stereotypes/reverse stereotypes haunt Kubrick's version of Lolita as an emotional, yet sub-epidermis, presence.