Present And Future Belief
Divine Purpose? Religion, Race, and Attitudes Toward Life Extension Technology
Jacqui Frost et al.
Sociology of Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
There is a growing sociological literature examining how religion shapes attitudes toward science and technology. However, sociologists have done little to explore how attitudes toward religion and science shape support for end-of-life and life extension technologies. Past research suggests that those most likely to be interested in life extension technologies are nonreligious and White. However, we draw on theories in sociology of religion to examine how race and religion might intersect to shape attitudes about life extension. We find that Black Americans are significantly more interested in life extension than White Americans, and while religiosity decreases interest in life extension among White Americans, religiosity increases interest for Black Americans. And we find that Black and Hispanic Americans are more likely than White Americans to cite other-oriented and religious reasons over self-oriented reasons for wanting to extend their lives, such as "divine purpose" and a desire to contribute more to society.
Religion and Financial Hardship
William Bazley, Carina Cuculiza & Da Ke
University of South Carolina Working Paper, August 2024
Abstract:
This paper investigates whether religion shapes household financial outcomes. To address selection into religiosity, we employ an instrumental variable strategy that exploits arguably exogenous within-school, cross-cohort variation in peer influences during adolescence. We document that more religious households are less likely to experience financial hardship. This buffering effect is most pronounced among low socioeconomic status groups. Further investigation reveals that greater religiosity lowers the likelihood of financial hardship by improving patience, enhancing self-control, and easing psychological distress.
Religion, Identity and Preferences
Bouke Klein Teeselink & Georgios Melios
King's College London Working Paper, July 2024
Abstract:
This paper provides causal evidence on the impact of religious identification on political preferences, gender norms, societal beliefs, and group behavior. Exploiting clergy sexual abuse scandals as a source of exogenous variation in Catholicism, we demonstrate that religious de-identification leads to significant shifts in individual attitudes and political alignment. Using data on millions of U.S. college freshmen and county-level voting records, we find that secularization causes more progressive positions on issues like abortion rights and same-sex marriage, but more conservative views on universal healthcare and military spending. The net effect is a substantial leftward shift in overall political orientation. We also document more progressive gender attitudes, particularly regarding women's workforce participation, among those who deidentify as Catholic. Notably, religious de-identification reduces individuals' propensity to engage in other group activities. Additional analyses suggest that as individuals disaffiliate from Catholicism, they increasingly identify with their social class, which polarizes economic preferences between high and low-income groups.
Income Inequality, World Polity, and Political Secularization: A Comparative Historical Analysis (1870-2014)
Justin Huft & Peyman Hekmatpour
Sociology of Religion, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous works find descriptive evidence for a long-term political secularization trend during the nineteenth century, and a political desecularization trend starting in the late 1970s. This study, however, is an attempt to go beyond mere descriptions of global trends by introducing a methodological approach that can effectively account for the differences between countries in their paths either toward or away from political secularization. We use growth curve models to estimate country-specific trajectories of political secularization, and then condition these trajectories on nations' historically predominant religions as well as geographic locations as a time-invariant independent variable. Overall, results suggest that there is a significant heterogeneity in trajectories of political secularization. Results suggest that as income inequality increases, so does the government's preference for religion. Moreover, as countries become more embedded in the world polity (measured by increased number of international governmental organizations memberships), governments tend to lose their preference for religion.
Conquering Korea for Jesus: Protestant Missionaries, Local Churches, and Literacy in Colonial Korea
Sascha Becker & Cheongyeon Won
Labour Economics, December 2024
Abstract:
We study the effect of Protestantism on human capital acquisition using novel data on 234 counties and 2,478 towns in the Korean peninsula in 1930. First, we show that towns with a larger number of native Protestant churches have higher literacy rates throughout colonial Korea. To establish causality, we employ hand-collected data on the exposure to foreign Protestant missionaries as an instrumental variable for the number of native Protestant churches. Furthermore, we study the differential success of different missionary societies, using a spatial RDD that exploits the Comity Agreement of 1909 which geographically divided Korea between missionary societies. We show that Presbyterians, who put more emphasis on empowering local churches, were more successful at attracting members, and fostering literacy, than the Methodists with their more hierarchical structure.
Religion and Conflict: Evidence from China, 1860-1911
Yujing Huang, Chicheng Ma & Felipe Valencia Caicedo
University of California Working Paper, September 2024
Abstract:
This paper examines the economic origins and consequences of religious conflicts in the context of late Qing China (1860-1911). While the literature has attributed the anti-missionary violence to the cultural clash between Confucianism and Christianity, we show that the missionaries' economic contributions to China through treaty ports and public goods provision -- rather than the strength of Confucianism -- significantly attenuated Chinese anti-missionary movements. We then assess the short and medium-term impacts of the anti-missionary episode on China's economic development. We find that these conflicts discouraged Western merchants from investing in China, evidenced by fewer modern banks and industrial firms. This negative effect also spilled over to Chinese domestic economic growth until 1930. The consequences persisted to the present time with conservatism toward international trade and fewer foreign investments in regions with more historical religious conflicts.
The cultural evolution of witchcraft beliefs
Sarah Peacey et al.
Evolution and Human Behavior, September 2024
Abstract:
Witchcraft beliefs are historically and geographically widespread, but little is known about the cultural inheritance processes that may explain their variation between populations. A core component of witchcraft belief is that certain people ('witches') are thought to harm others using supernatural means. Various traits, which we refer to as the 'witchcraft phenotype' accompany these beliefs. Some can be classified as 'symbolic culture', including ideas about the typical behaviour of witches and concepts such as familiars (witches' magical helpers), and demographic traits such as the age and sex of those likely to be accused. We conducted an exploratory study of the cultural evolution of 31 witchcraft traits to examine their inferred ancestry and associations with historic population movements. We coded a dataset from ethnographic accounts of Bantu and Bantoid-speaking societies in sub-Saharan Africa (N = 84) and analysed it using phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs). Our results estimate that while some traits, such as an ordeal to test for witchcraft, have deep history, others, such as accusations of children, may have evolved more recently, or are limited to specific clusters of societies. Demographic and symbolic cultural traits do not typically co-evolve. Our findings suggest traits have different transmission patterns, and these may result from benefits they provide or from universal psychological mechanisms that produce their recurrent evolution.