Larger than Life
When in Doubt, Shout! Paradoxical Influences of Doubt on Proselytizing
David Gal & Derek Rucker
Psychological Science, November 2010, Pages 1701-1707
Abstract:
A seminal case study by Festinger found, paradoxically, that evidence that disconfirmed religious beliefs increased individuals' tendency to proselytize to others. Although this finding is renowned, surprisingly, it has never been subjected to experimental scrutiny and is open to multiple interpretations. We examined a general form of the question first posed by Festinger, namely, how does shaken confidence influence advocacy? Across three experiments, people whose confidence in closely held beliefs was undermined engaged in more advocacy of their beliefs (as measured by both advocacy effort and intention to advocate) than did people whose confidence was not undermined. The effect was attenuated when individuals affirmed their beliefs, and was moderated by both importance of the belief and open-mindedness of a message recipient. These findings not only have implications for the results of Festinger's seminal study, but also offer new insights into people's motives for advocating their beliefs.
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Religious Appeals and Implicit Attitudes
Bethany Albertson
Political Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article explores the effects of religious appeals by politicians on attitudes and behavior. Although politicians frequently make religious appeals, the effectiveness of these appeals and the mechanisms of persuasion are unknown. This article explores the possibility that religious language can affect political attitudes through implicit processes. Because religious attachments are formed early in the lives of many Americans, religious language may influence citizens without their awareness. Implicit and explicit attitudes are related but distinct constructs, and implicit attitudes may have behavioral implications in the political realm. I test these hypotheses experimentally, relying on a widely used implicit measure, the Implicit Association Test. I find that a Christian religious appeal affects implicit attitudes and political behavior among people who currently or previously identify as Christian. Furthermore, an explicit preference for less religion in politics does not moderate implicit effects.
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Cross-Cutting Messages and Political Tolerance: An Experiment Using Evangelical Protestants
Carin Robinson
Political Behavior, December 2010, Pages 495-515
Abstract:
Democratic theorists believe that exposure to rationales for conflicting views augments deliberation and tolerance. Evidence suggests that people are more tolerant of opposing groups after being exposed to alternative points of view, yet it is unclear how source credibility and previous exposure to the source moderates this effect. Using experimental survey data from a sample of evangelical Protestant PAC donors, I manipulate Christian Right activists' exposure to dissonant messages on immigration reform and capital punishment and vary the source of these messages. I find that when the opposing viewpoints are attributed to a religious leader generally found outside the Christian Right social movement (a mainline Protestant), evangelicals are less tolerant than when attributed to a religious leader sometimes found within the movement (a Catholic). Moreover, I find the amount of contact with the respective religious group moderates source effects. In this way, the study reveals how social networks may moderate the effect of elite discourse on public opinion.
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Quentin Atkinson & Pierrick Bourrat
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Reputation monitoring and the punishment of cheats are thought to be crucial to the viability and maintenance of human cooperation in large groups of non-kin. However, since the cost of policing moral norms must fall to those in the group, policing is itself a public good subject to exploitation by free riders. Recently, it has been suggested that belief in supernatural monitoring and punishment may discourage individuals from violating established moral norms and so facilitate human cooperation. Here we use cross-cultural survey data from a global sample of 87 countries to show that beliefs about two related sources of supernatural monitoring and punishment - God and the afterlife - independently predict respondents' assessment of the justifiability of a range of moral transgressions. This relationship holds even after controlling for frequency of religious participation, country of origin, religious denomination and level of education. As well as corroborating experimental work, our findings suggest that, across cultural and religious backgrounds, beliefs about the permissibility of moral transgressions are tied to beliefs about supernatural monitoring and punishment, supporting arguments that these beliefs may be important promoters of cooperation in human groups.
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Religion In America - 1972-2006: Religious Affiliation, Attendance, And Strength Of Faith
Kevin Flannelly, Kathleen Galek, Jackson Kytle & Nava Silton
Psychological Reports, June 2010, Pages 875-890
Abstract:
The present study used data from the General Social Survey, collected between 1972 and 2006 (N = 45,463) to analyze changes over time in three aspects of religion among American adults: religious affiliation, frequency of attending religious services, and strength of faith. The last two measures were analyzed only for survey participants who had a religious affiliation. Ordinary least-squares regression confirmed a significant decrease in religious affiliation over time, after controlling for socio-demographic variables that are known to be associated with religion. A significant decrease in attending religious services was found among those survey participants who were religiously affiliated. As expected, participants who were African American, female, older, and from the South were more religious according to all three measures. No effect of birth-cohort was found for any religious measure. The results are discussed in the context of Stark and Bainbridge's 1996 theory of religion.
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The invisible hand plays dice: Multiple equilibria in sects markets
Panu Poutvaara & Andreas Wagener
Public Choice, December 2010, Pages 483-502
Abstract:
Religious participation is much more widespread in the United States than in Europe, while Europeans tend to view sects more suspiciously than Americans. We propose an explanation for these patterns without assuming differences in preferences or market fundamentals. We study a religious market where both demand and supply of spiritual services are endogenous. Such markets may have multiple equilibria. Further, equilibria with more sects result in higher welfare and lower membership costs, as secular societies tend to host on average more demanding sects.
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Does Individual Secularism Promote Life Satisfaction? The Moderating Role of Societal Development
Liman Man Wai Li & Michael Bond
Social Indicators Research, December 2010, Pages 443-453
Abstract:
This study was designed to examine the link between values and life satisfaction, examining the role of culture in this process. Secularism was found to predict life satisfaction scores at a small but statistically very significant level in persons from all nations participating in all four waves of the World Values Survey. The direction and strength of this relationship was moderated, however, by the country's human development index-people in low-HDI countries consistently showed a negative relationship between secularism and happiness across the four waves of the WVS; people in high-HDI countries initially showed a negative relationship between secularism and happiness in Waves 1 and 2, but a positive relationship between secularism and happiness in Waves 3 and 4. These results thus appear to support a "cultural fit" hypothesis consistently for persons in low HDI countries, and a transition towards a "cultural fit" for persons in HDI countries as data was collected across the four waves. By Wave 4, it is clear that citizens who endorse values consistent with their county's developmental trajectory are more satisfied with their lives. This study demonstrates the amenability of the data collected by the World Values Survey to individual-level analysis of psychological process that is responsive to the shaping influence of variations in their nation's societal characteristics.
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Wrath of God: Religious primes and punishment
Ryan McKay, Charles Efferson, Harvey Whitehouse & Ernst Fehr
Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent evidence indicates that priming participants with religious concepts promotes prosocial sharing behaviour. In the present study, we investigated whether religious priming also promotes the costly punishment of unfair behaviour. A total of 304 participants played a punishment game. Before the punishment stage began, participants were subliminally primed with religion primes, secular punishment primes or control primes. We found that religious primes strongly increased the costly punishment of unfair behaviours for a subset of our participants-those who had previously donated to a religious organization. We discuss two proximate mechanisms potentially underpinning this effect. The first is a 'supernatural watcher' mechanism, whereby religious participants punish unfair behaviours when primed because they sense that not doing so will enrage or disappoint an observing supernatural agent. The second is a 'behavioural priming' mechanism, whereby religious primes activate cultural norms pertaining to fairness and its enforcement and occasion behaviour consistent with those norms. We conclude that our results are consistent with dual inheritance proposals about religion and cooperation, whereby religions harness the byproducts of genetically inherited cognitive mechanisms in ways that enhance the survival prospects of their adherents.
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Neal Krause
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, November 2010, Pages 234-246
Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to see if older Protestants and older Catholics differ in the amount of social support they receive from fellow church members and members of the clergy when stressful life events arise. The data come from a nationwide longitudinal survey of older adults. The findings reveal that at relatively low levels of exposure to stress, older Catholics are less likely than older Protestants to get emotional support from either rank-and-file church members or members of the clergy. However, as the level of exposure to stress increases, this difference disappears, and older Catholics appear to be just as likely as older Protestants to receive emotional support from fellow church members and members of the clergy. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.
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Does Religion Still Matter? Religion and Public Attitudes toward Integration in Europe
Brent Nelsen, James Guth & Brian Highsmith
Politics and Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent years have seen a proliferation of studies on the determinants of support for the European Union among national publics. Scholars have analyzed economic, political, informational, and identity factors as influences, but there has been less exploration of cultural factors, most notably religion. This article replicates our earlier studies exploring the impact of confessional culture and religious commitment on support for the European Union, expanding the purview from early member states to more recent accessions and candidates for membership. Using Eurobarometer 65.2 (Papacostas 2006), we demonstrate that religion still shapes attitudes toward European integration, but in varying ways and to different extents in several parts of the Union. In early member states, Catholics - especially committed ones - are more supportive of the European Union than Protestants, confirming earlier findings. In more recent accessions, however, religion's impact is weaker and assumes different configurations. Finally, we present evidence that even in the early member states religion is losing its influence over Europeanist sentiment and suggest that this development presents obstacles to further political integration.
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The Politicization of Religion: Political Catholicism and Political Islam in Comparative Perspective
Ateş Altınordu
Politics & Society, December 2010, Pages 517-551
Abstract:
While religious politics have been a widely discussed topic in the social sciences in recent decades, few studies develop general explanations based on systematic and detailed comparative analysis. This article seeks to explain when and how successful religious parties rise. To that end, I comparatively analyze the politicization of German Catholicism in the second half of the nineteenth century (1848-1878) and Turkish Islam in the post-1970 period (1970-2002) and briefly examine the negative case of nineteenth-century German Protestantism. According to the theory of revival-reaction-politicization I propose, successful religious parties rise when major religious revivals confront social counter-mobilization and state repression, provided that existing political parties do not effectively represent religious defense. The study's findings challenge the pervasive tendency to treat Christian and Islamic politics as incommensurable.
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Religion as resource: Religion and immigrant economic incorporation
Phillip Connor
Social Science Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Much of the immigration literature in the United States points toward a positive association between religious activity and immigrant economic adaptation. Immigrant congregations serve as informal job fairs, build social capital for entrepreneurial activity, and provide a locale for leadership skill development. Using the New Immigrant Survey, this hypothesis of religion as economic resource is tested among immigrants receiving permanent residency within the United States in 2003. Somewhat surprisingly, most findings indicate a null relationship between religion and economic outcomes (i.e. employment, occupation status, and earnings). However, in instances where a significant relationship does exist, non-Protestant immigrants suffer the greatest economic penalty, particularly among non-Protestants who are not regularly participating in a religious organization. In contrast, non-Protestants who regularly participate have a higher likelihood of employment and higher earnings than their non-participating counterparts. Therefore, this paper extends previous literature in specifying that the religion as resource hypothesis operates best for non-Protestant immigrants who are actively involved in their religious organizations.
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Lessons from Delphi: Religious Markets and Spiritual Capitals
Laurence Iannaccone, Colleen Haight & Jared Rubin
Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, forthcoming
Abstract:
We develop a generalized theory of religious markets and apply its insights to archaic Greece, ancient Israel, and modern America. Our starting point is a simple game-theoretic model in which secular leaders enhance their power by influencing the location of sacred places. The model includes standard equilibria-such as pure competition and state-sponsored monopoly-as well as a novel equilibrium, which we call the neutral nexus, wherein a sacred place gains widespread authority precisely because it lies beyond the centers of secular power. The nexus can promote cooperation, innovation, and exchange, especially where markets are weak and power is fragmented. It can also sustain random divination-a surprisingly effective way to manage conflict and risk. The sanctuary of Delphi illustrates the real-world relevance of the neutral nexus, as does Israel's tabernacle of Shiloh.