Believable
How Politics Affects Religion: Partisanship, Socialization, and Religiosity in America
Michele Margolis
Journal of Politics, January 2018, Pages 30-43
Abstract:
Scholars have consistently shown that social identities can shape political attitudes and behaviors; this article explores the reverse relationship. Are partisan identities ever strong enough to influence involvement with a politically relevant social group? Looking at an identity that has become an increasingly strong predictor of partisanship and vote choice, religion, the article develops and tests a theory that politics can affect partisans’ levels of religiosity at a certain time in their lives. An experiment and two panel studies show that when people are in the process of raising children — a time that encourages many to make decisions associated with their religious identities — their partisanship may influence these religious choices. The findings highlight politics’ role in shaping key aspects of partisans’ social identities and, ultimately, the religious makeup of the United States.
Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election
Andrew Whitehead, Samuel Perry & Joseph Baker
Sociology of Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why did Americans vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election? Social scientists have proposed a variety of explanations, including economic dissatisfaction, sexism, racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. The current study establishes that, independent of these influences, voting for Trump was, at least for many Americans, a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage. Data from a national probability sample of Americans surveyed soon after the 2016 election shows that greater adherence to Christian nationalist ideology was a robust predictor of voting for Trump, even after controlling for economic dissatisfaction, sexism, anti-black prejudice, anti-Muslim refugee attitudes, and anti-immigrant sentiment, as well as measures of religion, sociodemographics, and political identity more generally. These findings indicate that Christian nationalist ideology — although correlated with a variety of class-based, sexist, racist, and ethnocentric views — is not synonymous with, reducible to, or strictly epiphenomenal of such views. Rather, Christian nationalism operates as a unique and independent ideology that can influence political actions by calling forth a defense of mythological narratives about America’s distinctively Christian heritage and future.
Understanding Americans’ abortion attitudes: The role of the local religious context
Amy Adamczyk & Margrét Valdimarsdóttir
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although abortion became legal over 40 years ago, Americans remain staunchly divided over its acceptability. Personal religious beliefs and behaviors have emerged as some of the most important factors shaping disapproval. Despite religion's importance, very little attention has been given to how the local religious context may shape views and abortion access. Using data from the General Social Survey (N = 6922) that has geographical identifiers, we examine the role of the local religious context for shaping attitudes and the presence of a county abortion clinic. We find that as the level of county religious engagement rises, religious and secular residents alike develop more conservative attitudes. Conversely, as the county Catholic rate increases, moderate and liberal Protestants become more prochoice. While the county conservative Protestant rate has no influence on residents' attitudes, it is the only religious contextual measure that shapes the likelihood that a county has an abortion clinic.
The greening of Christianity? A study of environmental attitudes over time
David Konisky
Environmental Politics, March/April 2018, Pages 267-291
Abstract:
In contradistinction to the ideas of Lynn White and others who have long suggested that the Judeo-Christian tradition fosters a ‘dominion over nature’ ethos, a number of scholars have recently argued that there has been a ‘greening of Christianity’. Largely missing from this debate is strong evidence at the individual level as to whether Christians have in fact adopted deeper environmental concerns over time. This study provides such evidence through an examination of longitudinal data from Gallup’s annual surveys on the environment. The analysis reveals little evidence that Christians have expressed more environmental concern over time. In fact, across many measures, Christians tend to show less concern about the environment. This pattern holds across Catholic, Protestant and other Christian denominations and for differing levels of religiosity. These findings support a conclusion that there has not been a discernible ‘greening of Christianity’ among the American public.
The Persistent and Exceptional Intensity of American Religion: A Response to Recent Research
Landon Schnabel & Sean Bock
Sociological Science, November 2017
Abstract:
Recent research argues that the United States is secularizing, that this religious change is consistent with the secularization thesis, and that American religion is not exceptional. But we show that rather than religion fading into irrelevance as the secularization thesis would suggest, intense religion — strong affiliation, very frequent practice, literalism, and evangelicalism — is persistent and, in fact, only moderate religion is on the decline in the United States. We also show that in comparable countries, intense religion is on the decline or already at very low levels. Therefore, the intensity of American religion is actually becoming more exceptional over time. We conclude that intense religion in the United States is persistent and exceptional in ways that do not fit the secularization thesis.
Non-Scientific Criteria for Belief Sustain Counter-Scientific Beliefs
Emlen Metz, Deena Weisberg & Michael Weisberg
Cognitive Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Why is evolutionary theory controversial among members of the American public? We propose a novel explanation: allegiance to different criteria for belief. In one interview study, two online surveys, and one nationally representative phone poll, we found that evolutionists and creationists take different justifications for belief as legitimate. Those who accept evolution emphasize empirical evidence and scientific consensus. Creationists emphasize not only the Bible and religious authority, but also knowledge of the heart. These criteria for belief remain predictive of views about evolution even when taking into account other related factors like religion, political affiliation, and education. Each view is supported by its own internally specified criteria for what constitutes a justified belief. Changing minds may thus require changing epistemic norms.
Religion, a social determinant of mortality? A 10-year follow-up of the Health and Retirement Study
Ellen Idler et al.
PLoS ONE, December 2017
Abstract:
The social determinants of health framework has brought a recognition of the primary importance of social forces in determining population health. Research using this framework to understand the health and mortality impact of social, economic, and political conditions, however, has rarely included religious institutions and ties. We investigate a well-measured set of social and economic determinants along with several measures of religious participation as predictors of adult mortality. Respondents (N = 18,370) aged 50 and older to the Health and Retirement Study were interviewed in 2004 and followed for all-cause mortality to 2014. Exposure variables were religious attendance, importance, and affiliation. Other social determinants of health included gender, race/ethnicity, education, household income, and net worth measured at baseline. Confounders included physical and mental health. Health behaviors and social ties were included as potential explanatory variables. Cox proportional hazards regressions were adjusted for complex sample design. After adjustment for confounders, attendance at religious services had a dose-response relationship with mortality, such that respondents who attended frequently had a 40% lower hazard of mortality (HR = 0.60, 95% CI 0.53–0.68) compared with those who never attended. Those for whom religion was “very important” had a 4% higher hazard (HR = 1.04, 95% CI 1.01–1.07); religious affiliation was not associated with risk of mortality. Higher income and net worth were associated with a reduced hazard of mortality as were female gender, Latino ethnicity, and native birth. Religious participation is multi-faceted and shows both lower and higher hazards of mortality in an adult US sample in the context of a comprehensive set of other social and economic determinants of health.
Death and the Self
Shaun Nichols et al.
Cognitive Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is an old philosophical idea that if the future self is literally different from the current self, one should be less concerned with the death of the future self (Parfit, 1984). This paper examines the relation between attitudes about death and the self among Hindus, Westerners, and three Buddhist populations (Lay Tibetan, Lay Bhutanese, and monastic Tibetans). Compared with other groups, monastic Tibetans gave particularly strong denials of the continuity of self, across several measures. We predicted that the denial of self would be associated with a lower fear of death and greater generosity toward others. To our surprise, we found the opposite. Monastic Tibetan Buddhists showed significantly greater fear of death than any other group. The monastics were also less generous than any other group about the prospect of giving up a slightly longer life in order to extend the life of another.
What Do You Mean, “What Does It All Mean?” Atheism, Nonreligion, and Life Meaning
David Speed, Thomas Coleman & Joseph Langston
SAGE Open, January 2018
Abstract:
Nonreligion is often thought to be commensurate with nihilism or fatalism, resulting in the perception that the nonreligious have no source of meaning in life. While views to this effect have been advanced in various arenas, no empirical evaluation of such a view has been conducted. Using data from the 2008 American General Social Survey (N = ~1,200), we investigated whether atheists, the religiously unaffiliated, and persons raised religiously unaffiliated were more likely than theists, the religiously affiliated, and persons raised with a religious affiliation to report greater levels of fatalism, nihilism, and the perception that meaning in life is self-provided. Results suggested that these groups did not differ with regard to fatalism or nihilism. However, atheists and the religiously unaffiliated (but not persons raised in a religiously unaffiliated household) were more likely to indicate that meaning in life was endogenous — that is, self-produced. While atheists and the nonreligious differed from their counterparts on source of meaning in life, this was not associated with any “penalty” for overall existential meaning.
Karma or Immortality: Can Religion Influence Space-Time Mappings?
Heng Li & Yu Cao
Cognitive Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
People implicitly associate the “past” and “future” with “front” and “back” in their minds according to their cultural attitudes toward time. As the temporal focus hypothesis (TFH) proposes, future-oriented people tend to think about time according to the future-in-front mapping, whereas past-oriented people tend to think about time according to the past-in-front mapping (de la Fuente, Santiago, Román, Dumitrache, & Casasanto, 2014). Whereas previous studies have demonstrated that culture exerts an important influence on people's implicit spatializations of time, we focus specifically on religion, a prominent layer of culture, as potential additional influence on space-time mappings. In Experiment 1 and 2, we observed a difference between the two religious groups, with Buddhists being more past-focused and more frequently conceptualizing the past as ahead of them and the future as behind them, and Taoists more future-focused and exhibiting the opposite space-time mapping. In Experiment 3, we administered a religion prime, in which Buddhists were randomly assigned to visualize the picture of the Buddhas of the Past (Buddha Dipamkara) or the Future (Buddha Maitreya). Results showed that the pictorial icon of Dipamkara increased participants' tendency to conceptualize the past as in front of them. In contrast, the pictorial icon of Maitreya caused a dramatic increase in the rate of future-in-front responses. In Experiment 4, the causal effect of religion on implicit space-time mappings was replicated in atheists. Taken together, these findings provide converging evidence for the hypothesized causal role of religion for temporal focus in determining space-time mappings.
God on the Fly? The Professional Mandates of Airport Chaplains
Wendy Cadge
Sociology of Religion, Winter 2018, Pages 437–455
Abstract:
This article contributes to Bender et al’s efforts to explore religion “on the edge” by analyzing how religion and spirituality are present in one set of public institutions — airports (2013). I ask how airport chaplains articulate the professional mandate or basis on which they do their work. Rather than making legal or economic arguments, common in the literature about professional mandates, airport chaplains emphasize the moral demand they perceive for their work. They speak of the need to be present, to see and be attentive to grief, and to serve as a last resort. As a case, airport chaplains raise questions about Andrew Abbott’s (1988) approach to the professions by defining as “work” actions within airports that other professionals do not. Rather than being in competition with other professional groups for the right to do this “work,” they are working to become a companion profession, one that comes alongside.