Better Angels
Fewer and Better Children: Race, Class, Religion, and Birth Control Reform in America
Melissa Wilde & Sabrina Danielsen
American Journal of Sociology, May 2014, Pages 1710-1760
Abstract:
In the early 20th century, contraceptives were illegal and, for many, especially religious groups, taboo. But, in the span of just two years, between 1929 and 1931, many of the United States' most prominent religious groups pronounced contraceptives to be moral and began advocating for the laws restricting them to be repealed. Met with everything from support, to silence, to outright condemnation by other religious groups, these pronouncements and the debates they caused divided the American religious field by an issue of sex and gender for the first time. This article explains why America's religious groups took the positions they did at this crucial moment in history. In doing so, it demonstrates that the politics of sex and gender that divide American religion today is deeply rooted in century-old inequalities of race and class.
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No Good Without God: Antiatheist Prejudice as a Function of Threats to Morals and Values
Corey Cook, Catherine Cottrell & Gregory Webster
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, forthcoming
Abstract:
A sociofunctional, threat-based approach to prejudice suggests that perceived outgroup threats lead people to act to minimize those threats. In 2 experiments the current research explores how perceived threats to values affect antiatheist prejudices. In Experiment 1 we found that atheists were perceived to pose significantly greater threats to values, and elicit greater moral disgust, than other groups also perceived to pose values-related threats (gay men, Muslims). In Experiment 2 we randomly assigned participants to read either a news story detailing moral decline - priming values threats - or a control story. Following the values-threat prime, participants reported increased negative affect and greater discriminatory intentions toward atheists, but not toward students or other groups (gay men or people with HIV). Together, these experiments suggest that perceptions of threats to values are associated with, and negatively affect, antiatheist prejudice. We discuss our findings' theoretical implications for a sociofunctional, threat-based approach to prejudice.
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The South, the Suburbs, and the Vatican Too: Explaining Partisan Change Among Catholics
John Barry Ryan & Caitlin Milazzo
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper explains changes in partisanship among Catholics in the last quarter of the 20th Century using a theory of partisan change centered on the contexts in which Catholics lived. Catholics were part of the post-New Deal Democratic coalition, but they have become a swing demographic group. We argue that these changes in partisanship are best explained by changes in elite messages that are filtered through an individual's social network. Those Catholics who lived or moved into the increasingly Republican suburbs and South were the Catholics who were most likely to adopt a non-Democratic partisan identity. Changes in context better explain Catholic partisanship than party abortion policy post Roe v. Wade or ideological sorting. We demonstrate evidence in support of our argument using the ANES cumulative file from 1972 through 2000.
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Melissa Deckman
Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, Summer 2014, Pages 199-221
Abstract:
Barack Obama appeared poised to capture more votes among Evangelical women than Evangelical men given the prominence that economic and wartime issues played in the 2008 election. However, I find that no gender gap existed among Evangelicals in 2008; instead, religious tradition trumps gender as a predictor of presidential vote choice. While Obama fared similarly to John Kerry, Evangelical women were significantly more likely to vote for Al Gore than Evangelical men, demonstrating that there may be circumstances in which Democratic presidential candidates can mitigate some of their voting losses to Evangelical women.
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God will Forgive: Reflecting on God's Love Decreases Neurophysiological Responses to Errors
Marie Good, Michael Inzlicht & Michael Larson
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, forthcoming
Abstract:
In religions where God is portrayed as both loving and wrathful, religious beliefs may be a source of fear as well as comfort. Here, we consider if God's love may be more effective, relative to God's wrath, for soothing distress, but less effective for helping control behavior. Specifically, we assess whether contemplating God's love reduces our ability to detect and emotionally react to conflict between one's behavior and overarching religious standards. We do so within a neurophysiological framework, by observing the effects of exposure to concepts of God's love versus punishment on the error-related negativity (ERN) - a neural signal originating in the anterior cingulate cortex, that is associated with performance monitoring and affective responses to errors. Participants included 123 students at Brigham Young University, who completed a Go/No-Go task where they made "religious" errors (i.e., ostensibly exhibited pro-alcohol tendencies) . Reflecting on God's love caused dampened ERNs and worse performance on the Go/No-Go task. Thinking about God's punishment did not affect performance or ERNs. Results suggest that one possible reason religiosity is generally linked to positive wellbeing, may be because of a decreased affective response to errors that occurs when God's love is prominent in the minds of believers.
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Birth Cohort Changes in the Association Between College Education and Religious Non-Affiliation
Philip Schwadel
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article examines the changing association between higher education and reporting no religious affiliation in the United States. I argue that increases in higher education have led to a decline in the individual-level effect of college education on religious non-affiliation. Results from hierarchical age-period-cohort models using more than three and a half decades of repeated cross-sectional survey data demonstrate that the strong, positive effect of college education on reporting no religious affiliation declines precipitously across birth cohorts. Specifically, a bachelor's degree has no effect on non-affiliation by the 1965-69 cohort, and a negative effect for the 1970s cohorts. Moreover, these across-cohort changes are strongly associated with aggregate growth in college education, and they vary considerably by religious origin. I conclude with a discussion of how the results relate to changes among the college-educated population, the religious deinstitutionalization of the non-college-educated, cultural diffusion across social statuses, and other cohort-appropriate social and cultural changes.
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Explaining the relationship between religiousness and substance use: Self-control matters
Nathan DeWall et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, August 2014, Pages 339-351
Abstract:
Religiousness is reliably associated with lower substance use, but little research has examined whether self-control helps explain why religiousness predicts lower substance use. Building on prior theoretical work, our studies suggest that self-control mediates the relationship between religiousness and a variety of substance-use behaviors. Study 1 showed that daily prayer predicted lower alcohol use on subsequent days. In Study 2, religiousness related to lower alcohol use, which was mediated by self-control. Study 3 replicated this mediational pattern using a behavioral measure of self-control. Using a longitudinal design, Study 4 revealed that self-control mediated the relationship between religiousness and lower alcohol use 6 weeks later. Study 5 replicated this mediational pattern again and showed that it remained significant after controlling for trait mindfulness. Studies 6 and 7 replicated and extended these effects to both alcohol and various forms of drug use among community and cross-cultural adult samples. These findings offer novel evidence regarding the role of self-control in explaining why religiousness is associated with lower substance use.
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The Influence of Secular and Theological Education on Pastors' Depression Intervention Decisions
Jennifer Shepard Payne
Journal of Religion and Health, October 2014, Pages 1398-1413
Abstract:
Will a pastor refer to a mental health center? If they feel qualified to intervene themselves, they may not. Because pastors often provide grief counseling, it is important to understand the decisions they make when intervening with depressed individuals. A random sample of 204 Protestant pastors completed surveys about their treatment practices for depression. Fisher's exact analyses revealed that more pastors with some secular education yet no degree felt that they were the best person to treat depression than pastors who had no secular education or pastors who had at least a secular bachelor's degree. However, the level of theological education did not influence beliefs about the pastor being the best person to treat depression. In addition, neither secular nor theological education level influenced pastors' views on referring people to mental health centers for depression treatment. Based on findings, this paper discusses implications for best practices in training pastors on depression and other mental health topics.
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Religious fundamentalism and racial prejudice: A comparison of implicit and explicit approaches
Paul Williamson, Jasmine Bishop & Ralph Hood
Mental Health, Religion & Culture, Fall 2014, Pages 847-859
Abstract:
We examined religious fundamentalism (RF) and racial prejudice (RP) using the implicit Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP) and explicit Feeling Thermometer (FT). Ninety undergraduates (38 Blacks and 52 Whites) from a small southern USA university participated. We experimentally manipulated aggression/love Bible texts to study any influence on RP, but found that it had no effect on reducing pretest-posttest AMP scores. Analysis of AMP posttest data found that Black participants favoured Black over White Primes, but White participants did not discriminate between Race Primes. High RF did not discriminate between Race Primes, although low RF did, in preferring Black Primes. Analysis of explicit FT Warmness towards Whites/Blacks found an in-group preference for both White and Black participants. In this analysis, RF was not a discriminator among White participants in overall Warmness towards Whites/Blacks, although it was among Black participants. Most consistent across implicit-explicit data analyses was that high RF was generally unrelated to RP.
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"God Is Like a Drug.": Explaining Interaction Ritual Chains in American Megachurches
James Wellman, Katie Corcoran & Kate Stockly-Meyerdirk
Sociological Forum, September 2014, Pages 650-672
Abstract:
Megachurches have been criticized as superficial sources of entertainment that do not produce significant feelings of belonging, moral responsibility, or spirituality. This article challenges popular criticisms of megachurches and, drawing on interaction ritual theory, proposes that megachurches are successful interaction ritual venues and powerful purveyors of emotional religious experience. We predict that these interaction rituals produce positive emotional energy, membership symbols that are charged with emotional significance, feelings of morality, and a heightened sense of spirituality. From a census of 1,250 known megachurches in America, 12 were selected that closely represent the national megachurch profile. At each church, focus groups were conducted and attendees participated in a survey. We combine these data sources to provide a more comprehensive picture of the megachurch interaction ritual. The combined qualitative and quantitative results provide strong support for our predictions.
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Beliefs About God and Mental Health Among American Adults
Nava Silton et al.
Journal of Religion and Health, October 2014, Pages 1285-1296
Abstract:
This study examines the association between beliefs about God and psychiatric symptoms in the context of Evolutionary Threat Assessment System Theory, using data from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey of US Adults (N = 1,426). Three beliefs about God were tested separately in ordinary least squares regression models to predict five classes of psychiatric symptoms: general anxiety, social anxiety, paranoia, obsession, and compulsion. Belief in a punitive God was positively associated with four psychiatric symptoms, while belief in a benevolent God was negatively associated with four psychiatric symptoms, controlling for demographic characteristics, religiousness, and strength of belief in God. Belief in a deistic God and one's overall belief in God were not significantly related to any psychiatric symptoms.
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Kenneth Ferraro & Seoyoun Kim
Social Science & Medicine, forthcoming
Abstract:
The study investigates potential health benefits of religiosity to protect against chronic inflammation associated with the risk of cardiovascular diseases. The study uses longitudinal data from a representative survey of adults 57 to 85 years old at the beginning of the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project. Linear regression models were used to analyze the association between religiosity, as measured by affiliation, attendance, and having a clergy confidant, and logged values of C-reactive protein (CRP) concentration (mg/L). Although religious attendance was not related to CRP among the White respondents, attendance was associated with lower CRP - and change in CRP over time - among the Black respondents. There was no evidence that religious affiliation alone had any health benefit. The study provides evidence of the salutary effects of religious engagement on chronic inflammation among older adults, especially for Black Americans, which may be useful in reducing the prevalence of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.
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Assessing Whether Practical Wisdom and Awe of God Are Associated With Life Satisfaction
Neal Krause & David Hayward
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although emotion figures prominently in religious life, there has been little research on one of the strongest religious emotions - awe of God. The purpose of this study was to embed this key religious emotion in a wider latent-variable model that contains the following core hypotheses: (a) more frequent church attendance is associated with greater practical wisdom; (b) people with more practical wisdom are more likely to experience awe of God; (c) individuals who experience awe of God are more likely to say they feel a deep sense of connectedness with others; and (d) those who feel more closely connected with others will be more satisfied with their lives. New measures were developed to assess awe of God and practical wisdom. Findings from a recent nationwide survey (N = 1,535) of middle-aged and older adults provided support for each of these relationships.
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Karina Schumann et al.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, September 2014, Pages 432-453
Abstract:
The present research tested the hypothesis that many people's ambient religious beliefs are non-hostile and magnanimous by assessing whether reminding people of their religious belief systems would reduce hostility after threat. Across religious affiliations, participants reported that their religious belief systems encourage magnanimous behavior. In addition, priming their religious belief systems caused them to act more magnanimously, but only when motivated to adhere to salient ideals (i.e., after threats; see Gailliot, Stillman, Schmeichel, Maner, & Plant, 2008; Jonas et al., 2008). Specifically, in Studies 1-5, we found that a general religious belief system prime ("Which religious belief system do you identify with?") reduced the hostility of people's thoughts, behaviors, and judgments following threat. In Studies 6 and 7, we found that the religious belief system prime only reduced hostile reactions to threat among participants who held religious beliefs that oriented them toward magnanimous ideals (Study 6) and who were dispositionally inclined to adhere to their ideals (Study 7). In Study 8, we found support for the role of magnanimous ideals by demonstrating that directly priming these ideals yielded effects similar to those produced by a religious belief system prime. These studies provide consistent evidence that, by invoking magnanimous ideals, a religious belief system prime promotes less hostile responses to threat.
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Amy McDowell
Qualitative Sociology, September 2014, Pages 255-276
Abstract:
This article contributes to new scholarship in the sociological study of religion, which looks at how people define and communicate religion in secular spheres. I show how U.S. Christian Hardcore and Muslim "Taqwacore" (taqwa means "god consciousness" in Arabic) punks draw on the tools of a punk rock culture that is already encoded with its own set of symbols, rituals and styles to: 1) understand themselves as religious/punk and 2) express religion in punk rock environments. I find that both cases draw on a punk rock motif of antagonism - oppositional attitudes and violent rituals and symbols - to see themselves as religious/punk and express religion in punk in different ways. Christian punks use this motif to condemn other Christians for denouncing punk and create space for Protestant evangelical Christianity in punk. Taqwacores use this motif to criticize Islam for its conservatism as well as non-Muslims for stereotyping Muslims as religious fanatics. In the process, Taqwacores build a space for alienated brown youth who exist on the margins of mainstream American culture and traditional Islam.
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The Growth of Protestantism in Brazil and Its Impact on Male Earnings, 1970-2000
Joseph Potter, Ernesto Amaral & Robert Woodberry
Social Forces, forthcoming
Abstract:
Protestantism has expanded rapidly in Brazil in recent decades. The question we tackle in this paper is whether Protestantism has had a positive influence on male earnings in this setting, either through its influence on health and productivity, by way of social networks or employer favor and reduced discrimination, or through other mechanisms. We tackle the problem of the selectivity of religious conversion and affiliation using microdata from the Brazilian censuses of 1970, 1980, 1991, and 2000, and analyzing the association between Protestantism and earnings at the group rather than the individual level. Our results show a strong association between the proportion of Protestants in a region, and the earnings of men in one educational group: those with less than five years of education. Upon introducing race into our models, we found that the association between religion and the earnings of less educated men is concentrated in regions in which there is a substantial non-white population. The relationships we have uncovered contribute to the literature on racial inequality and discrimination in Brazil, which to date has given little space to the role of religion in moderating the pernicious effect of race on economic outcomes in Brazil. The substantial association we found between religion and earnings contrasts with much of the research that has been carried out on the influence of religion on earnings in the United States.
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Tending the Flock: Latino Religious Commitments and Political Preferences
Ali Adam Valenzuela
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study investigates the direction and extent to which religious belonging and regular church attendance are related to distinct political preferences among U.S. Latinos. The key question is whether Latino churchgoers are more committed than infrequent attenders to liberal policy views and the Democratic Party, or whether Latino religious commitments are related to conservative policy views and Republican Party support. Findings indicate that Latino Protestants are more likely to hold conservative views, while Latino Catholics - the vast majority of religious Latinos - are more likely to hold liberal views, or show no political differences, if they attend church regularly.
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Konika Banerjee & Paul Bloom
Cognition, October 2014, Pages 277-303
Abstract:
People often believe that significant life events happen for a reason. In three studies, we examined evidence for the view that teleological beliefs reflect a general cognitive bias to view the world in terms of agency, purpose, and design. Consistent with this hypothesis, we found that individual differences in mentalizing ability predicted both the tendency to believe in fate (Study 1) and to infer purposeful causes of one's own life events (Study 2). In addition, people's perception of purpose in life events was correlated with their teleological beliefs about nature, but this relationship was driven primarily by individuals' explicit religious and paranormal beliefs (Study 3). Across all three studies, we found that while people who believe in God hold stronger teleological beliefs than those who do not, there is nonetheless evidence of teleological beliefs among non-believers, confirming that the perception of purpose in life events does not rely on theistic belief. These findings suggest that the tendency to perceive design and purpose in life events - while moderated by theistic belief - is not solely a consequence of culturally transmitted religious ideas. Rather, this teleological bias has its roots in certain more general social propensities.
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The Influence of Islamic Orientations on Democratic Support and Tolerance in five Arab Countries
Niels Spierings
Politics and Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Conclusions from empirical analyses on how Islam influences democratic attitudes in Arab countries differ widely, and the field suffers from conceptual ambiguity and largely focuses on "superficial" democratic support. Based on the non-Middle Eastern literature, this study provides a more systematic theoretical and empirical assessment of the linkages between Islamic attitudes and the popular support for democracy. I link belonging (affiliation), commitment (religiosity), orthodoxy, Muslim political attitudes, and individual-level political Islamism to the support for democracy and politico-religious tolerance. Statistical analyses on seven WVS surveys for Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia show that tolerance levels are remarkably lower than "democratic support"; the influence of being (committed or orthodox) Muslim and Muslim political attitudes are negligible however. Political Islamist views strongly affect tolerance negatively. They also influence "support for democracy," but if the opposition in an authoritarian country is Islamic, these attitudes actually strengthen this support.
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Productive Intolerance: Godly Nationalism in Indonesia
Jeremy Menchik
Comparative Studies in Society and History, July 2014, Pages 591-621
Abstract:
Since democratization, Indonesia has played host to a curious form of ethnic conflict: militant vigilante groups attacking a small, socially marginal religious sect called Ahmadiyah. While most scholars attribute the violence to intolerance by radicals on the periphery of society, this article proposes a different reading based on an intertwined reconfiguration of Indonesian nationalism and religion. I suggest that Indonesia contains a common but overlooked example of "godly nationalism," an imagined community bound by a shared theism and mobilized through the state in cooperation with religious organizations. This model for nationalism is modern, plural, and predicated on the exclusion of religious heterodoxy. Newly collected archival and ethnographic material reveal how the state's and Muslim civil society's long-standing exclusion of Ahmadiyah and other heterodox groups has helped produce the "we-feeling" that helps constitute contemporary Indonesian nationalism. I conclude by intervening in a recent debate about religious freedom to suggest that conflicts over blasphemy reflect Muslim civil society's effort to delineate an incipient model of nationalism and tolerance while avoiding the templates of liberal secularism or theocracy.
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Magali Clobert et al.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Is East Asian religious tolerance, as opposed to Western monotheistic prejudice, a stereotype or a reality? Based on theoretical and empirical evidence, we hypothesized low prejudice as a function of East Asian religiosity. We examined whether this holds true for interreligious, anti-atheist, ethnic, and anti-gay prejudice. In Study 1, analysis of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2008 data from Eastern religious and Christian samples in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan (total N = 3,555) showed, contrarily to Christians, high interreligious tolerance and weaker if no anti-gay prejudice as a function of Eastern religiosity. In Study 2, Eastern religiosity among Taiwanese (n = 222) was negatively related to prejudice against various religious outgroups (except atheists), especially among those low in authoritarianism. In Study 3, Eastern religiosity among Taiwanese (n = 102) was negatively related to implicit interreligious (Muslims) and ethnic (Africans) prejudice; prosociality partially mediated the former association. Eastern religious tolerance seems to be true, but not unlimited.
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Jim Everett et al.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Given the prominence of Muslim veils - in particular the hijab and full-face veil - in public discourse concerning the place of Muslims in Western society, we examined their impact on non-Muslims' responses at both explicit and implicit levels. Results revealed that responses were more negative toward any veil compared with no veil, and more negative toward the full-face veil relative to the hijab: for emotions felt toward veiled women (Study 1), for non-affective attitudinal responses (Study 2), and for implicit negative attitudes revealed through response latency measures (Studies 3a and 3b). Finally, we manipulated the perceived reasons for wearing a veil, finding that exposure to positive reasons for wearing a veil led to better predicted and imagined contact (Study 4). Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.