'Tis the Season
On the Perception of Religious Group Membership from Faces
Nicholas Rule, James Garrett & Nalini Ambady
PLoS ONE, December 2010, e14241
Background: The study of social categorization has largely been confined to examining groups distinguished by perceptually obvious cues. Yet many ecologically important group distinctions are less clear, permitting insights into the general processes involved in person perception. Although religious group membership is thought to be perceptually ambiguous, folk beliefs suggest that Mormons and non-Mormons can be categorized from their appearance. We tested whether Mormons could be distinguished from non-Mormons and investigated the basis for this effect to gain insight to how subtle perceptual cues can support complex social categorizations.
Methodology/Principal Findings: Participants categorized Mormons' and non-Mormons' faces or facial features according to their group membership. Individuals could distinguish between the two groups significantly better than chance guessing from their full faces and faces without hair, with eyes and mouth covered, without outer face shape, and inverted 180°; but not from isolated features (i.e., eyes, nose, or mouth). Perceivers' estimations of their accuracy did not match their actual accuracy. Exploration of the remaining features showed that Mormons and non-Mormons significantly differed in perceived health and that these perceptions were related to perceptions of skin quality, as demonstrated in a structural equation model representing the contributions of skin color and skin texture. Other judgments related to health (facial attractiveness, facial symmetry, and structural aspects related to body weight) did not differ between the two groups. Perceptions of health were also responsible for differences in perceived spirituality, explaining folk hypotheses that Mormons are distinct because they appear more spiritual than non-Mormons.
Conclusions/Significance: Subtle markers of group membership can influence how others are perceived and categorized. Perceptions of health from non-obvious and minimal cues distinguished individuals according to their religious group membership. These data illustrate how the non-conscious detection of very subtle differences in others' appearances supports cognitively complex judgments such as social categorization.
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Was He Happy? Cultural Difference in Conceptions of Jesus
Shigehiro Oishi, Kyoung Ok Seol, Minkyung Koo & Felicity Miao
Journal of Research in Personality, forthcoming
Abstract:
In two studies, we examined whether (a) conceptions of Jesus would differ between Koreans and Americans, and whether (b) national differences in self-reported personality and well-being are mediated by the cultural norm for personality and well-being. Because there is only one Jesus, different conceptions held by Koreans and Americans are likely to reflect cultural construction processes. In Study 1, we asked Korean and American participants to engage in a free association task with Jesus as a target. Americans associated Jesus with primarily positive connotations ("awesome") and rarely with negative connotations ("pain"), whereas Koreans associated Jesus with both positive and negative connotations. In Study 2, we asked Korean and American participants to rate Jesus and themselves using personality and well-being scales. Americans rated both Jesus and themselves as more extraverted, agreeable, conscientious, open, and happy than did Koreans. Most importantly, national differences in self-reported agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, and happiness were partially mediated by conceptions of Jesus.
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Jochen Hirschle
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, December 2010, Pages 673-687
Abstract:
Using Ireland, which experienced an economic boom in the mid 1990s, as a case study, the negative association between economic growth and religious practice is examined by testing two competing hypotheses. Secularization theory argues that the cultural changes that accompany economic growth lead to a decline in religious values. As religious values diminish, so does attendance at religious services. An alternative explanation is that economic growth increases individual purchasing power and therefore consumption-related behavior. Consumption supplants religion by providing alternative intermediaries (symbols, infrastructures, and practices) for social behavior, but only marginally affects religious values. Using data from the 1988 to 2005 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), analyses show that the economic boom in Ireland was clearly associated with a decline in religious attendance, while religious values remained stable. Thus, in Ireland the consequences of economic growth deviate from the predictions of secularization theory and therefore support the consumption argument.
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"Written in the Style of Antiquity": Pseudo-Biblicism and the Early American Republic, 1770-1830
Eran Shalev
Church History, December 2010, Pages 800-826
Abstract:
The text from which the first three verses are quoted above is a partisan Democratic tract published originally in the Richmond Enquirer and reprinted in the South Carolina Investigator, encouraging Americans during the early stages of the War of 1812 to support France ("Gallia") in the hopes of bolstering President Madison's war against Britain ("Albion"). Its language is recognizably biblical, while its content is clearly American, describing an early episode of the late Revolution. "The 1st Book of the Chronicles" went on to describe in 29 verses that covered two chapters how "John," an American patriot elected through the ancient method of casting lots, represented the true interests of the republic (that is siding with the "Gallians" against the "Albionites") before "the Elders assembled together, even in the city of Philadelphia." By the end of the "book," "the Elders heard the words that John had spoken, [and] said one to another, ‘What manner of man is this? For behold he speaketh the words of truth.'" However eccentric such a rendition may seem to us today, numerous similar tracts were written in America after 1740 for over a century until the onset of the Civil War, peaking from approximately 1770 to 1830. This unique and overlooked American tradition of writing "in the style of antiquity" opens a window onto a lost early American world of biblical imagination.
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Higher Education and Theological Liberalism: Revisiting the Old Issue
Sam Reimer
Sociology of Religion, Winter 2010, Pages 393-408
Abstract:
It has long been assumed that higher education has a corrosive effect on religious belief and practice. Contrary to research from the 1970s and 80s, however, recent studies show that the college experience has little effect on the religiosity of college students. In this paper, I reconcile these opposing viewpoints by showing that higher education has a liberalizing effect, but only for a minority of students. A sample of church-going Protestants demonstrates that those with higher education are more theologically liberal, but the type of education matters more than the amount of higher education. Exposure to secular theories and whether one attends secular or religious schools have robust effects on theological liberalism.
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Creativity and positive schizotypy influence the conflict between science and religion
James MacPherson & Steve Kelly
Personality and Individual Differences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent research suggests that evaluations of scientific and religious explanations compete for ‘explanatory space'. This study examines whether a combination of positive schizotypy (PS) and creativity can partly explain why a scientist committed to empirical measurement and evidence could hold a concomitant faith-based view of the world. The O-LIFE, the religious orientation Scale and the Creative Personality Scale were completed by (n = 222) PhD level Scientists and a Control group of (n = 193) non-scientists. Regression analyses found that PS and creativity accounted for a significant degree of variance in religiosity in the Scientist sample. This relationship was not demonstrated in the Control group, nor was it affected by the intrinsic/extrinsic religiosity dimension. These findings suggest that PS and creativity help afford religious beliefs when commitment to empiricism is high. Links to cognitive processing styles such as syncretic cognition and Transliminality are discussed.
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Olav Aarts, Ariana Need, Manfred Te Grotenhuis & Nan Dirk De Graaf
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, December 2010, Pages 657-672
Abstract:
This study tests the deregulation hypothesis of religious market theory in 26 European and Northern American countries by examining differences in religious involvement between and within countries. The deregulation hypothesis, which is assumed to be universally valid, predicts that religious involvement is higher in deregulated religious markets. Moreover, countries having deregulated religious markets for a longer period of time are supposed to have higher levels of involvement. Therefore, we test the duration hypothesis. This test is important, as it also has been argued that it may take time for deregulation to have an effect on religious involvement. Multilevel analysis on the stacked European and World Value Surveys of 1981, 1990, 2000, and 2006 show that deregulation fosters church attendance, but duration of deregulation does not increase church attendance. Although the deregulation hypothesis cannot be rejected, we find that modernization corrodes church attendance to a larger extent than deregulation can stimulate church attendance.
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The Citizen-Soldier: Masculinity, War, and Sacrifice at an Emerging Church in Seattle, Washington
Jessica Johnson
PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, November 2010, Pages 326-351
Abstract:
Based on two years of research on the same-sex marriage debate in Seattle, Washington, this article examines the cultural politics of Mars Hill Church, a prominent conservative evangelical church that is training men to become "citizen-soldiers." Mars Hill serves as an institutional resource and home to young pastors disenchanted with attempts to influence electoral politics; instead, these pastors are shifting their attention to affecting local cultures on a global scale. My study investigates how this movement of emerging churches is multiplying through outreach to an unlikely demographic: 18- to 30-year-old men living in urban centers. I explore how Mars Hill is seeking to reform mainstream culture and institutional Christianity by using multinational corporate models, neoliberal logics of governance, and calls to war and sacrifice - in the process also regionally, nationally, and globally expanding its church network. Specifically, this article examines how Mars Hill uses the figure of the citizen-soldier to inspire men to volunteer for church service in accordance with notions of sacrifice and responsibility that simultaneously mobilize and refute ideologies of self. Biblical masculinity is thereby linked to the discipline and deployment of citizen-soldiers who serve as a vanguard to oversee, cultivate, and protect Mars Hill's church planting network. Through investigations of dynamics surrounding marriage equality politics, neoliberal technologies of governance, and militarization post-9/11, this study explores how crises of masculinity and security are articulated in tandem with culture war discourses; this permits us to analyze the effects of the same-sex marriage debate beyond single issue identity politics.
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"A Hundred Miles of Dry": Religion and the Persistence of Prohibition in the U.S. States
John Frendreis & Raymond Tatalovich
State Politics & Policy Quarterly, Fall 2010, Pages 302-319
Abstract:
Our fundamental objective in this article is to explain why certain counties within the U.S continue to restrict the sale of alcohol at the start of the 21st century. What factors identified as important for the initial drive for Prohibition remain important nearly 80 years later? We assess to what extent social, political, and economic variables are related to the presence of restrictions on the sale of alcohol at the county-level across the United States. Analyzing contemporary county-level data from over 3,000 U.S. counties, the strongest factor associated with "dry" status of a county is the religious composition, specifically the presence of Evangelical Protestants. Conversely, a larger concentration of Roman Catholics inhibits prohibition in a county. The regional character of the political geography of contemporary prohibition-the phenomenon is almost entirely Southern- appears to be driven by the uneven distribution of different religious adherents across the country.
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The complex associations between conforming to masculine norms and religiousness in men
Zachary Ward & Stephen Cook
Psychology of Men & Masculinity, forthcoming
Abstract:
This study sought to challenge the common conclusion that masculinity is only associated with decreased religiousness in men. The current investigation predicted more complex associations among these constructs, where both positive and negative associations would exist between masculinity and religiousness. To examine this, 154 male undergraduates completed a comprehensive measure of 11 masculine norms and measures of 5 aspects of religiousness: religious commitment; intrinsic, extrinsic, and quest religious motivations; and religious fundamentalism. Results indicated that both positive and negative associations exist between masculinity and religiousness. Three aspects of traditional masculinity (winning, power over women, and disdain for homosexuals) were positively correlated with various aspects of religiousness, and 3 aspects of traditional masculinity (emotional control, violence, and playboy) were negatively associated with various aspects of religiousness. Furthermore, 3 significant canonical functions were interpreted linking various aspects of masculinity to (a) traditional religiousness, (b) nondogmatic religiousness, and (c) both intrinsic and extrinsic religiousness.
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John Phillips & Laura McMillian
Politics and Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article addresses an idea central to liberal debates on civic education: the spillover thesis. Both egalitarian liberals and their religious opponents in these debates claim that liberal civic education creates spillover effects into the way individuals assess the meaning of their own lives. Some religious citizens fear that their politically reasonable conceptions of the good life are being undermined by education that emphasizes the practice of autonomous reasoning. Egalitarian liberals usually acknowledge this risk or cost, but deny that religious citizens should be given special dispensation from the burdens of autonomous reasoning. Some may even hope that conservative religious beliefs will be eroded by the practice of liberal civic education. This article disputes the spillover thesis. Given the best evidence available from the field of cognitive psychology, we challenge the notion that critical personal reflection about public matters is bound to spillover into critical reflection about private moral matters. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that human beings are usually well equipped to compartmentalize and are capable of reasoning in different ways depending on the context. Thus, reasonable citizens of faith are not necessarily unduly burdened by programs of civic education; nor are liberal programs of civic education necessarily going to lead us to a more secular society of autonomous thinkers. The article also speaks to a broader civic humanist tradition in political philosophy that includes Plato, Tocqueville, Rousseau, and Marcus Aurelius. For these authors, the success of a political enterprise is seen to crucially depend on the inculcation of a robust and comprehensive system of private virtue. For without private virtue, there is no public virtue. If we are correctly interpreting the available psychological research, private virtue need not be as crucially relevant for the success of common political enterprises. The inculcation of private moral virtue does not so clearly translate into making good leaders, voters, and public servants.
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Testing the Strictness Thesis and Competing Theories of Congregational Growth
Jeremy Thomas & Daniel Olson
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, December 2010, Pages 619-639
Abstract:
Building off of Dean Kelley's and Laurence Iannaccone's earlier work, we develop a path model of the strictness thesis that investigates and compares how congregational strictness, evangelical theology, demographic characteristics, and denominational identity variously contribute to congregational growth and decline. Using the U.S. Congregational Life Survey (2001), we test this model at the congregational level and find significant support for the mechanisms at the core of both Kelley's and Iannaccone's versions of the strictness thesis, particularly that even after controlling for the other dynamics mentioned, congregational strictness has both an indirect and a direct positive effect on congregational growth. We also find, however, that evangelical theology, fertility, and denominational identity all play important roles in the prediction of growth, leading us to assert our integrated model as a new and more fully robust understanding of congregational growth and decline.
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James Benjamin Schuurmans-Stekhoven
Social Indicators Research, January 2011, Pages 313-330
Abstract:
Opinion is mixed regarding the link between spiritual faith-based beliefs (SFBBs) and psychological well-being-however, most published field studies suggest a positive link. Controlled experiments demonstrate that spirituality promotes social cohesion and deters excessive self-interested behaviour. Yet past research has largely overlooked virtues (which are related to, yet distinct from, SFBB) as a rival explanation for these observations. Reviewed papers almost exclusively employed bi-variate designs incapable of answering the question "Is it God, or just missing variables?" This paper redresses this oversight by simultaneously including virtue (e.g., kindness, etc.,) and SFBB as predictors of well-being. Although simple analyses (.02 ≤ β ≤ .28) replicate the typical SFBB findings, multivariate analyses reveal that virtues (spirituality) positively (negatively) predict well-being. Since multivariate analyses (which are rarely conducted in this field) are appropriate for testing competing theories, past claims that SFBBs improve well-being appear spurious.
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Cyrus Ali Contractor
Politics and Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
The study of Muslims in the West is a burgeoning field, in which scholars are examining the religious, social and political lives of Muslims as minorities. This article continues in that vein, and utilizes the Muslim American Political Opinion Survey (MAPOS) to compare Shi‘a and Sunni responses in a few areas of interest: religious identity, views of being a Muslim in the United States, and political participation in the American system. Using a comparison of mean responses and the t-test to analyze 13 variables, it demonstrates that Sunnis felt more strongly that the teachings of Islam were compatible with political participation in the United States, and that a statistically significantly higher percentage of Shi‘a respondents participated in a rally or protest. The study goes further to suggest that perhaps congregants of Shi‘a mosques view Islamic teachings as being more compatible with participation in American politics, and opens the door for further consideration and research involving a more in-depth study of the Shi‘as in the American political context, one that examines how the narratives that drive Shi‘ism affect individual Shi‘a social and political participation in a country where they are a real "minority within a minority".
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Jaime Kucinskas
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, December 2010, Pages 761-770
Abstract:
Despite the importance of young people in determining future trends in women's advancement in the predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle East, no quantitative study to date has focused exclusively on the relationship between Islamic religiosity and gender egalitarianism among youth in the region. Using data from the Youth, Emotional Energy, and Political Violence Survey, I investigate the relationship between Islamic religiosity and gender egalitarianism among youth in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, devoting special attention to gender differences within countries. Particular dimensions of Islamic religiosity have different effects on gender egalitarianism by group, reflecting social currents in each country's civic sphere. For young men in both contexts, orthodoxy and mosque attendance are negatively associated with gender egalitarianism. In contrast, for Egyptian young women self-identified religiosity positively affects gender egalitarianism while for Saudi Arabian women, Islamic religiosity has no effect.
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Farida Jalalzai
Politics and Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Utilizing both quantitative and qualitative analysis, this article assesses discrimination and anxiety among Muslims in the post-September 11, 2001 United States. Substantial portions of Muslim-Americans are indeed anxious and report personal and group discrimination. However, this is guided by many factors including religious salience, age, education, political attentiveness, native born status, and years lived in the United States. Respondents who are more anxious and know victims of religious discrimination are also more active in politics. However, personal experiences with discrimination are unrelated to political participation. Overall, in spite of or perhaps because of anxiety over their present status, Muslim-Americans are highly functional in the political sphere. Many are now more active in politics than prior to September 11, 2001.
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New Light on Human Prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf Oasis
Jeffrey Rose
Current Anthropology, December 2010, Pages 849-883
Abstract:
The emerging picture of prehistoric Arabia suggests that early modern humans were able to survive periodic hyperarid oscillations by contracting into environmental refugia around the coastal margins of the peninsula. This paper reviews new paleoenvironmental, archaeological, and genetic evidence from the Arabian Peninsula and southern Iran to explore the possibility of a demographic refugium dubbed the "Gulf Oasis," which is posited to have been a vitally significant zone for populations residing in southwest Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. These data are used to assess the role of this large oasis, which, before being submerged beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean, was well watered by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun, and Wadi Batin rivers as well as subterranean aquifers flowing beneath the Arabian subcontinent. Inverse to the amount of annual precipitation falling across the interior, reduced sea levels periodically exposed large portions of the Arabo-Persian Gulf, equal at times to the size of Great Britain. Therefore, when the hinterlands were desiccated, populations could have contracted into the Gulf Oasis to exploit its freshwater springs and rivers. This dynamic relationship between environmental amelioration/desiccation and marine transgression/regression is thought to have driven demographic exchange into and out of this zone over the course of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene, as well as having played an important role in shaping the cultural evolution of local human populations during that interval.