Relationships between Religion and Two Forms of Homonegativity in Europe—A Multilevel Analysis of Effects of Believing,Belonging and Religious Practice

This paper examines relationships between religion and two forms of homonegativity across 43 European countries using a bivariate response binary logistic multilevel model. The model analyzes effects of religious believing, belonging and practice on two response variables: a) a moral rejection of homosexuality as a practice and b) intolerance toward homosexuals as a group. The findings indicate that both forms of homonegativity are prevalent in Europe. Traditional doctrinal religious believing (belief in a personal God) is positively related to a moral rejection of homosexuality but to a much lesser extent associated with intolerance toward homosexuals as a group. Members of religious denominations are more likely than non-members to reject homosexuality as morally wrong and to reject homosexuals as neighbors. The analysis found significant differences between denominations that are likely context-dependent. Attendance at religious services is positively related to homonegativity in a majority of countries. The findings vary considerably across countries: Religion is more strongly related to homonegativity in Western than in Eastern Europe. In the post-soviet countries homonegativity appears to be largely a secular phenomenon. National contexts of high religiosity, high perceived government corruption, high income inequality and shortcomings in the implementation of gay rights in the countries’ legislations are statistically related to higher levels of both moralistic homonegativity and intolerance toward homosexuals as a group.     

Explaining religious differences in immigrants' gender role attitudes: the changing impact of origin country and individual religiosity

Religion is often perceived as one of the main barriers to immigrant integration in Europe. By focusing on the contested area of immigrants' gender role attitudes, this study analyses data of first- and second-generation immigrants from multiple origin countries and of different religious affiliations in comparison to the native population. It shows that higher levels of religiosity can explain immigrants' more traditional attitudes to some extent, but that origin country socialization acts as an important additional determinant of attitudes of the first generation. Among second-generation migrants, only Muslims continue to hold more traditional attitudes. Acculturation for longer-staying migrants is partly explained by declining religiosity, with some evidence for a decoupling of attitudes from religious beliefs among female migrants in particular. Intergenerational change, on the other hand, cannot be attributed to a decline in the role of religiosity.     

Testing theories of secularization and religious belief in the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Several theoretical approaches have been proposed to explain variation in religiosity, including versions of secularization hypotheses, evolved cognitive biases, and cultural transmission. In this paper we test several theories that aim to explain variation in religiosity and compare them in a representative sample collected in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (N = 2022). These two countries represent a natural experiment in religiosity; despite their high level of historical, institutional and cultural similarity, their populations differ markedly in the rate of religious belief. We examine the predictive power of cognitive biases (anthropomorphism, dualism, teleology, mentalizing, and analytic thinking); institutional insecurity; and exposure to credibility displays of belief in childhood on various factors of religious belief. We find that individual differences in cognitive biases predicted 8% of the variance belief in God, but predicted 21% of the variance in paranormal beliefs and almost no variance in religious participation. Perceived institutional insecurity explains little variance in any of these variables, but cultural transmission, measured as exposure to credibility enhancing displays (CREDs) and church attendance in childhood, predicted 17% of the variance in belief in God and 30% of religious participation, and mediated 70% of the difference between these two countries in belief in God and 80% of the difference in religious practice. These findings suggest cognitive biases may explain the existence of belief in the supernatural generally, but cultural transmission through credible belief displays is a more plausible explanation for why people adopt and maintain a specific set of religious beliefs and practices.     

Religion, fertility and genes: a dual inheritance model

Religious people nowadays have more children on average than their secular counterparts. This paper uses a simple model to explore the evolutionary implications of this difference. It assumes that fertility is determined entirely by culture, whereas subjective predisposition towards religion is influenced by genetic endowment. People who carry a certain 'religiosity' gene are more likely than average to become or remain religious. The paper considers the effect of religious defections and exogamy on the religious and genetic composition of society. Defections reduce the ultimate share of the population with religious allegiance and slow down the spread of the religiosity gene. However, provided the fertility differential persists, and people with a religious allegiance mate mainly with people like themselves, the religiosity gene will eventually predominate despite a high rate of defection. This is an example of 'cultural hitch-hiking', whereby a gene spreads because it is able to hitch a ride with a high-fitness cultural practice. The theoretical arguments are supported by numerical simulations.     

On Abortion: Exploring Psychological Meaning and Attitudes in a Sample of Mexican Gynecologists

Elective abortion has become an issue of ethical and political debate in many countries including Mexico. As gynecologists are directly involved in the practice of abortion, it is important to know the psychological meaning that the term ‘elective abortion’ has for them. This study explores the psychological meaning and attitudes toward elective abortion of one hundred and twenty‐three Mexican gynecologists. We used the semantic networks technique, which analyzed the words the participants associated with the term ‘elective abortion’. The defining words most frequently used by participants implied a negative sanction. There were important differences by gender and religiosity: male gynecologists, as well as those with strong religious beliefs (mainly Catholics), revealed a more negative psychological meaning and more negative attitudes than females or physicians with weak religious beliefs. A contribution of the present study is that it highlights the importance of psychology to enhancing understanding of the issue of elective abortion.     

Integration and religiosity among the Turkish second generation in Europe: a comparative analysis across four capital cities

Drawing on recent cross-national surveys of the Turkish second generation, we test hypotheses of secularization and of religious vitality for Muslim minorities in Europe. Secularization predicts an inverse relationship between structural integration and religiosity, such that the Turkish second generation would be less religious with higher levels of educational attainment and intermarriage. The religious vitality hypothesis predicts the maintenance of religion in the second generation, highlighting the role of religious socialization within immigrant families and communities. Taking a comparative approach, these hypotheses are tested in the context of different national approaches to the institutionalization of Islam as a minority religion in four European capital cities: Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels and Stockholm. Across contexts, religious socialization strongly predicts second-generation religiosity, in line with religious vitality. The secularization hypothesis finds support only among the second generation in Berlin, however, where Islam is least accommodated.     

What predicts religiosity? A multinational analysis of reproductive and cooperative morals

Theories of the sources of contemporary individual differences in religiosity have been proposed involving religiosity’s role both in (1) enhancing within-group cooperation and (2) supporting high-commitment reproductive strategies. The present study used data from 296,959 individuals in around 90 countries from the World Values Survey/European Values Study to test the relative strength of individual differences in cooperative morals and reproductive morals in predicting individual differences in religiosity. Cooperative morals tended not to predict religiosity either substantially or in a consistent direction across world regions when entered simultaneously with reproductive morals. In contrast, more-restrictive reproductive morals were significant predictors of increased religiosity in every region, with the size of the relationship being small in poorer regions and large in wealthier regions. These findings run counter to the view that religiosity has a fundamental connection with cooperative morals; instead, particularly in developed countries, individuals’ relationships with religious groups are more closely aligned with reproductive strategies.     

Science, religion, and society: the problem of evolution in america

American resistance to accepting evolution is uniquely high among First World countries. This is due largely to the extreme religiosity of the United States, which is much higher than that of comparably advanced nations, and to the resistance of many religious people to the facts and supposed implications of evolution. The prevalence of religious belief in the United States suggests that outreach by scientists alone will not have a huge effect in increasing the acceptance of evolution, nor will the strategy of trying to convince the faithful that evolution is compatible with their religion. Because creationism is a symptom of religion, another strategy to promote evolution involves loosening the grip of faith on America. This is easier said than done, for recent sociological surveys show that religion is highly correlated with the dysfunctionality of a society, and various measures of societal health show that the United States is one of the most socially dysfunctional First World countries. Widespread acceptance of evolution in America, then, may have to await profound social change.     

Knowing,understanding and practising democratic citizenship: an investigation of the role of religion among Muslim,Christian and non-religious adolescents

The aim of this study is to examine the relation between religiosity and civic competences required to practise democratic citizenship. We compare non-religious, Christian and Muslim adolescents in the Netherlands to see whether (a) there is a relation between religion and civic competences, and (b) whether this differs depending on religious denomination. In the public debate, the reconcilability of Islamic beliefs and democratic citizenship is often questioned, but the relation between the two lacks empirical support. Results from analyses on data of 364 adolescents in the Netherlands indicate that religious adolescents have more developed democratic competences than non-religious adolescents. This is the case both for Christian and Muslim adolescents. The strength of religiosity does not play a role in predicting civic competences. Importantly, no differences are found between the civic competences of Muslim and Christian youth.     

Religiosity and Support for Killing Animals: Evidence of a Curvilinear Relationship

ABSTRACT

Prior research shows that the correlation between religiosity and support for animal rights can be positive, negative, or zero. We hypothesized that this relationship may actually be curvilinear, where a moderate degree of religiosity may reduce support for killing animals (compared with non-religiosity or atheism), but a very high degree of religiosity (e.g., fundamentalism) might increase support for killing animals. We tested this hypothesis in a large sample of American undergraduate students, using a correlational study design with self-report measures of religiosity and of support for killing animals in different domains. The results indicated that, in support of our hypothesis, the relationship between religiosity and support for killing animals is curvilinear, as moderate levels of religiosity were related to less support for killing animals. People who were either not religious at all or very religious were the ones who most supported the killing of animals. Belief in God in itself was related to less support for killing animals. We then replicated the curvilinear relationship between religiosity and support for killing animals using data from four experiments from a previously published article on support for killing animals. We briefly consider possible explanations for these findings, the limitations of the study, and propose directions for future research. Overall, we believe that this study helps clarify the complex relationship between religiosity and support for killing animals, and advances the scientific understanding of the psychological forces that motivate people to support or object to the killing of animals.     

Religious Pro-Sociality? Experimental Evidence from a Sample of 766 Spaniards

This study explores the relationship between several personal religion-related variables and social behaviour, using three paradigmatic economic games: the dictator (DG), ultimatum (UG), and trust (TG) games. A large carefully designed sample of the urban adult population in Granada (Spain) is employed (N = 766). From participants'' decisions in these games we obtain measures of altruism, bargaining behaviour and sense of fairness/equality, trust, and positive reciprocity. Three dimensions of religiosity are examined: (i) religious denomination; (ii) intensity of religiosity, measured by active participation at church services; and (iii) conversion out into a different denomination than the one raised in. The major results are: (i) individuals with “no religion” made decisions closer to rational selfish behaviour in the DG and the UG compared to those who affiliate with a “standard” religious denomination; (ii) among Catholics, intensity of religiosity is the key variable that affects social behaviour insofar as religiously-active individuals are generally more pro-social than non-active ones; and (iii) the religion raised in seems to have no effect on pro-sociality, beyond the effect of the current measures of religiosity. Importantly, behaviour in the TG is not predicted by any of the religion-related variables we analyse. While the results partially support the notion of religious pro-sociality, on the other hand, they also highlight the importance of closely examining the multidimensional nature of both religiosity and pro-social behaviour.     

Immigrant generation,religiosity and civic engagement in Britain

Abstract

Immigrant integration appears to be generational in the USA, and further facilitated by religious involvement. We examine whether similar patterns exist in Britain. We find evidence for secularization across ethnic minority groups, measured by private religious practice and religious salience. Communal religious practice appears robust to generational decline. Ethnic minority members of the second generation exhibit lower social trust; for the 1.5 generation, being more religious is associated with lower trust. However, members of the 1.5 and second generation are more civically involved than the first and religiosity further increases civic involvement. While anecdotal accounts suggest that religiosity has a particularly dissociative effect on the second generation, we find no evidence for this. In sum, successive generations of ethnic minority respondents appear to be secularizing; successive generations are more civically involved than the arriving generation, although less trusting; and immigrant religiosity promotes civic integration.     

Mentalizing deficits constrain belief in a personal God

Religious believers intuitively conceptualize deities as intentional agents with mental states who anticipate and respond to human beliefs, desires and concerns. It follows that mentalizing deficits, associated with the autistic spectrum and also commonly found in men more than in women, may undermine this intuitive support and reduce belief in a personal God. Autistic adolescents expressed less belief in God than did matched neuro-typical controls (Study 1). In a Canadian student sample (Study 2), and two American national samples that controlled for demographic characteristics and other correlates of autism and religiosity (Study 3 and 4), the autism spectrum predicted reduced belief in God, and mentalizing mediated this relationship. Systemizing (Studies 2 and 3) and two personality dimensions related to religious belief, Conscientiousness and Agreeableness (Study 3), failed as mediators. Mentalizing also explained the robust and well-known, but theoretically debated, gender gap in religious belief wherein men show reduced religious belief (Studies 2-4).     

Minority statuses and positive views of the country in the United States: an investigation of nativity/immigrant status,and racial/ethnic and religious backgrounds

Using a nationally representative sample of adults in the US, this study examines the majority and minority’s positive views of the country in terms of nativity status, race and ethnicity, and religion. The results suggest that the majority–minority differences vary by demographic characteristics and attitudes examined. Although non-US citizens have a lower level of regard for the US as the best country in which to be a citizen than their counterparts, they have no less favourable views in other respects. Among ethnic minorities, only blacks have more negative views of the US than whites do. While religious minorities also have less regard for the country than the majority, individuals with no religious affiliation hold lower levels of most national attitudes. These findings suggest that the associations between minority status and views of the country go beyond race and ethnicity, which previous research has overlooked.     

On the politics and practice of Muslim fertility: comparative evidence from West Africa

Recent popular works have represented Muslim fertility as dangerously high, both a cause and consequence of religious fundamentalism. This article uses comparative, statistical methods to show that this representation is empirically wrong, at least in West Africa. Although religion strongly inflects reproductive practice, its effects are not constant across different communities. In West African countries with Muslim majorities, Muslim fertility is lower than that of their non-Muslim conationals; in countries where Muslims are in the minority, their apparently higher reproductive rates converge to those of the majority when levels of education and urban residence are taken into account. A similar pattern holds for infant mortality. By contrast, in all seven countries, Muslim women are more likely to report that their most recent child was wanted. The article concludes with a discussion of the relationship between autonomy and fertility desires.     

Scientific reasoning ability does not predict scientific views on evolution among religious individuals

Background

Acceptance of evolutionary theory varies widely and is often associated with religious background. Some have suggested there exists an additional relationship between scientific reasoning ability and the acceptance of evolutionary theory. In this study, we used structural equation modeling to test whether scientific reasoning ability predicts religiosity, acceptance of creationist views, or acceptance of evolution. We administered internet-based surveys to 724 individuals nationwide who self-describe as being religious and built a structural-equation model to test predictive abilities.

Results

We found that while religiosity positively predicts the acceptance of creationist views and negatively predicts the acceptance of evolution, scientific reasoning ability does not predict religiosity, acceptance of creationist views, or acceptance of evolutionary theory.

Conclusions

With a lack of any relationship between scientific reasoning ability and acceptance, an approach to evolution education that focuses on appealing to scientific reasoning may prove fruitless in changing student attitudes toward evolution; alternative teaching approaches regarding evolution are warranted.

     

Nationalism as meaningful life projects: identity construction among politically active Tamil families in Norway

Abstract

For many years Northern Ireland has been a divided society where members of the two main religious groups, Catholics and Protestants, have limited opportunities to interact due to segregation in their social lives. Attempts have been made to encourage religious mixing through integration in schools, housing, and workplaces predicated on the theory that bringing people together can improve community relations and remove prejudices – known as the ‘contact hypothesis’. However, little is known about those who enter into mixed-religion partnerships often against the wishes of their families and communities. This paper examines the characteristics and attitudes of mixed-religion couples and suggests that they differ in their socio-demographic characteristics and in their attitudes from those who marry within their own religion. These findings add to the weight of evidence from other countries in conflict suggesting that intermarriage has a role to play in contributing to less sectarian views and improved community relations.     

Abortion in Canada: religious and ideological dimension's of women's attitudes

This paper examines a number of demographic and sociocultural factors (e.g., age, marital status, family size, religion, religious assiduity, sex-role ideology) as predictors of women's attitudes toward abortion, using data from the Canadian Fertility Survey of 1984. The findings suggest that women's abortion attitudes are to a greater extent based on ideological positions. It appears that anti-abortion stance affects those women who are religious, presumably by increasing the relationship between their general sex-role ideological stances and abortion attitudes. Abortion attitudes also vary according to a woman's education, her size, and province/region of residence.     

Cross-Cultural and Site-Based Influences on Demographic, Well-being, and Social Network Predictors of Risk Perception in Hazard and Disaster Settings in Ecuador and Mexico

Although virtually all comparative research about risk perception focuses on which hazards are of concern to people in different culture groups, much can be gained by focusing on predictors of levels of risk perception in various countries and places. In this case, we examine standard and novel predictors of risk perception in seven sites among communities affected by a flood in Mexico (one site) and volcanic eruptions in Mexico (one site) and Ecuador (five sites). We conducted more than 450 interviews with questions about how people feel at the time (after the disaster) regarding what happened in the past, their current concerns, and their expectations for the future. We explore how aspects of the context in which people live have an effect on how strongly people perceive natural hazards in relationship with demographic, well-being, and social network factors. Generally, our research indicates that levels of risk perception for past, present, and future aspects of a specific hazard are similar across these two countries and seven sites. However, these contexts produced different predictors of risk perception—in other words, there was little overlap between sites in the variables that predicted the past, present, or future aspects of risk perception in each site. Generally, current stress was related to perception of past danger of an event in the Mexican sites, but not in Ecuador; network variables were mainly important for perception of past danger (rather than future or present danger), although specific network correlates varied from site to site across the countries.