Spirited
Do reminders of God increase willingness to take risks?
Cindel White, Chloe Dean & Kristin Laurin
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, January 2024
Abstract:
Many people, and American Christians in particular, view God as a benevolent protector. Those who believe in God may therefore expect that they can safely engage in potentially risky activities, secure in the knowledge that God will look out for their best interests and ensure good outcomes. Initial experiments supported this hypothesis, but recent attempts to replicate them failed. This unreliable pattern may reflect a false conceptual hypothesis, or an inadequate method: Both the initial reports and the replication attempts used outdated religious priming methods we now know to be ineffective. The present research aimed to clarify the relationship between thinking about God and risk-taking behaviors. A pilot study (N = 264) showed that American Christians do expect that God will protect them during risky activities; moreover, those who hold this expectation more strongly report greater willingness to take risks. This registered report then used a high-powered preregistered experiment to test whether having participants explicitly think about God's (presumably protective) influence over what happens in their lives increases their willingness to take risks. Results confirmed that American Christian participants were more willing to take non-moral risks when thinking about God, compared to a control condition, d = 0.28, 95% CI [0.12, 0.44], p < .001. This pattern was robust to different exclusion criteria and was consistent across domains of career, recreational, and social risks. By using the most recent and sensitive methods, this study provides a more definitive test of the conceptual hypothesis that thinking about God can influence risk-taking.
Churches as Social Insurance: Oil Risk and Religion in the U.S. South
Andreas Ferrara & Patrick Testa
Journal of Economic History, September 2023, Pages 786-832
Abstract:
Religious communities are important providers of social insurance. We show that risk associated with oil dependence facilitated the proliferation of religious communities throughout the U.S. South during the twentieth century. Known oil abundance predicts higher rates of church membership, which are not driven by selective migration or local economic development. Consistent with a social insurance channel, greater oil price volatility increases effects, while greater access to credit, state-level social insurance, and private insurance crowd out effects. Religious communities limit spillovers of oil price shocks across sectors, reducing increases in unemployment following a negative shock by about 30 percent.
Capital-labor substitution in the production of religious goods
Luke Petach
Economics Letters, November 2023
Abstract:
This paper provides evidence of capital-labor substitution in the production of religious goods. Using data on church attendance, tithing, and income from the U.S. Congregational Life Survey, I show that (A) the labor input to religious production (as measured by attendance at formal church services) declines as income increases, (B) the labor time equivalent of monetary giving increases as income increases, and (C) the increase in the labor time equivalent of monetary giving more than offsets the decline in formal church attendance, such that total household resources allocated to religious production increase with income.
Religious Identity-Inconsistent Attending: Its Correlates and Political Implications
Paul Djupe, Ryan Burge & Christopher Garneau
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
The foundation of religious measurement in surveys presumes that individual religious affiliation ("What is your present religion, if any?") accurately describes the religious community in which respondents are involved. But what if it doesn't? In a recent survey of 4,000 Americans, we asked whether their current congregation matches their religious identity and about a fifth of Americans indicated that it does not. We document the degree of this inconsistency, its correlates, and its implications, focusing primarily on the politics that congregants are exposed to from clergy and the attitudes they hold about salient political matters. The identity-inconsistent attenders often vary significantly from identity-consistent attenders, which serves to introduce considerable measurement error in the use of a religious tradition measure to depict American religion. The results suggest that salient disagreement induces a sizable population to migrate to a congregation outside their religious identity.
The Cultural Origins of the Demographic Transition in France
Guillaume Blanc
University of Manchester Working Paper, August 2023
Abstract:
This research shows that secularization accounts for the remarkably early fertility decline in France. The demographic transition, a turning point in history and an essential condition for development, first took hold in France, before the French Revolution and more than a century earlier than in any other country. Why it happened so early is one of the 'big questions of history' because it challenges traditional explanations and because of data limitations. Using a novel dataset crowdsourced from publicly available genealogies, I comprehensively document, for the first time, the decline in fertility and its timing with a representative sample of the population. Then, drawing on a wide range of sources and data, I document an important process of secularization in the eighteenth century and find a strong and robust association with the timing of the transition across regions and individuals. Finally, I discuss the persistent impact of the transition on economic growth and explore the drivers of secularization.
Assembly theory explains and quantifies selection and evolution
Abhishek Sharma et al.
Nature, 12 October 2023, Pages 321-328
Abstract:
Scientists have grappled with reconciling biological evolution with the immutable laws of the Universe defined by physics. These laws underpin life's origin, evolution and the development of human culture and technology, yet they do not predict the emergence of these phenomena. Evolutionary theory explains why some things exist and others do not through the lens of selection. To comprehend how diverse, open-ended forms can emerge from physics without an inherent design blueprint, a new approach to understanding and quantifying selection is necessary. We present assembly theory (AT) as a framework that does not alter the laws of physics, but redefines the concept of an 'object' on which these laws act. AT conceptualizes objects not as point particles, but as entities defined by their possible formation histories. This allows objects to show evidence of selection, within well-defined boundaries of individuals or selected units. We introduce a measure called assembly (A), capturing the degree of causation required to produce a given ensemble of objects. This approach enables us to incorporate novelty generation and selection into the physics of complex objects. It explains how these objects can be characterized through a forward dynamical process considering their assembly. By reimagining the concept of matter within assembly spaces, AT provides a powerful interface between physics and biology. It discloses a new aspect of physics emerging at the chemical scale, whereby history and causal contingency influence what exists.