By Faith Alone? Church Attendance and Christian Faith in three European Countries1

Many social scientists seem to believe that Catholics attend church more often than Protestants because of differences in theology and not necessarily because Protestants are more secularised. In an attempt to settle this issue, this article uses data from the 1999 European Values Study to determine what factors influence church attendance in a Catholic, Protestant, and mixed European country (Italy, Denmark, and Germany). Using an ordinary least squares multiple regression the article shows that for both Catholics and Protestants it is predominantly the level of Christian faith that determines the rate of church attendance. Hence the differences in church attendance among Catholics and Protestants reflect differences in overall levels of religiosity and are not just artefacts of different views of the importance of going to church. Even Protestants do not live by faith alone.     

Religion and Attitudes Toward Family Planning Issues Among US Adults

Although religion is an important influence on a variety of social attitudes, the relationship between religion and views on family planning remains underexplored, especially in terms of attitudes relating to public policy. Using data from a nationally-representative survey (N = 1,500) fielded in 1998, we examine the influence of religious affiliation, subcultural identification, and attendance on three aspects of attitudes toward contraception in the public sphere. Specifically, we explore opinions regarding the public consequences of contraception and the responsibility for making contraception available as part of health care services in the United States. More frequent religious attendance is linked to less-approving opinions about contraception and less support for its provision by the US government and health insurers. Catholic affiliation is not consistently associated with the examined opinions, and we find mixed results for conservative Protestants. Including religious subcultural identities yields additional information, with born-again Christians reporting less positive opinions about the consequences of contraceptive availability, while evangelical identity is linked to negative views on policy aimed at increasing access to family planning services. These findings contribute to knowledge about the relationship between religion and attitudes toward policy-relevant aspects of contraception, as well as the broader social influences of religious subcultural identification.     

Connections and Themes of Spirituality in Family Therapy

In this article, we provide an overview of current considerations of spirituality in family therapy literature and practice. We suggest that whatever practice of therapy is undertaken, implicity or explicitly it will reflect views on the connection between spirituality and family therapy--connections involving clients' and therapists' beliefs. A thematic framework based on dimensions of the instrumental and metaphysical is outlined. Clinical approaches and practices within these connections are discussed.     

Religion, Plausibility Structures, and Education's Effect on Attitudes Toward Elective Abortion

This study tests three hypotheses derived from Berger's (1967) plausibility theory. The first hypothesis states that among people who attend church frequently, education's liberalizing effect on attitudes toward elective abortion is weakest among conservative Protestants and Catholics, intermediate among moderate Protestants, and strongest among liberal Protestants and Jews. Hypotheses 2 states that education's effect is weaker among frequent than infrequent attenders in all religious groups except liberal Protestants and Jews, and Hypothesis 3 states that education's effect does not vary by religious group among infrequent attenders. Using General Social Survey data, I found strong support for Hypotheses 1 and 2 and partial support for Hypothesis 3. I discuss the implications of the findings for plausibility theory.     

Group Identification and Support for the Supreme Court: Evidence from Evangelical Protestants

Research on the determinants of the U.S. Supreme Court's institutional support among the public focuses on three factors at the level of the individual, including satisfaction with its performance, knowledge of the judiciary, and support for democratic values. Evidence from the group level has revealed that the relative importance of these factors can vary, despite the predictions of positivity theory that the effects of all factors should be similar across all subsets of the U.S. population. We seek to explain this inconsistency between theory and evidence through an analysis of evangelical Protestants, a politically powerful and theoretically compelling group. Drawing on group‐based studies, we develop a principled account of when group members will base their institutional support more strongly than others do on their satisfaction with the Court's recent performance, and identify defining features of the information environment of evangelical Protestants that satisfy the model's components. We report evidence from a national survey that the effects of all three major factors differ systematically for evangelical Protestants. We discuss implications of our analysis for an ongoing debate over positivity theory and for identifying other groups for whom institutional and specific support will be strongly linked.     

Religion and unforgivable offenses

ABSTRACT The value of forgiveness is emphasized in many religions, but little is known about how members of distinct religious cultures differ in their views of forgiveness. We hypothesized and found that Jews would agree more than Protestants that certain offenses are unforgivable and that religious commitment would be more negatively correlated with belief in unforgivable offenses among Protestants than among Jews (Studies 1 and 2). Dispositional forgiveness tendencies did not explain these effects (Studies 1 and 2). In Study 3, Jews were more inclined than Protestants to endorse theologically derived reasons for unforgivable offenses (i.e., some offenses are too severe to forgive, only victims have the right to forgive, and forgiveness requires repentance by the perpetrator). Differential endorsement of these reasons for nonforgiveness fully mediated Jew-Protestant differences in forgiveness of a plagiarism offense and a Holocaust offense.     

Assessing Coping Responses within Specific Faith Traditions: Suffering in Silence, Stress, and Depressive Symptoms Among Older Catholics

The purpose of this study is empirically evaluate a coping response that is thought to be unique among older Catholics - suffering in silence. Two hypotheses are examined. The first predicts that older Catholics will be more likely than older Protestants to suffer in silence when ongoing economic difficulty is encountered. The second hypothesis specifies that the potentially deleterious effects of financial problems on depressive symptoms will be offset for older adults who prefer to suffer in silence. Data from an ongoing nationwide survey of older people in the United States provide support for both hypotheses.     

Surviving the early loss of a mother: daughters speak,by Anne Tracey

The purpose of this study is to empirically evaluate a coping response that is thought to be unique among older Catholics–suffering in silence. Two hypotheses are examined. The first predicts that older Catholics will be more likely than older Protestants to suffer in silence when ongoing economic difficulty is encountered. The second hypothesis specifies that the potentially deleterious effects of financial problems on depressive symptoms will be offset for older adults who prefer to suffer in silence. Data from an ongoing nationwide survey of older people in the United States provide support for both hypotheses.     

Educational Attainment and Cohort Change Among Conservative Protestants, 1972–2004

A growing literature examines how conservative Protestants have made status gains relative to mainline Protestants over the past three decades. The results of these studies are inconclusive: by some measures conservative Protestants have achieved socioeconomic parity, in other accounts significant discrepancies remain. This article examines the relationship between religion of origin and educational attainment, highlighting the significance of both religious background (rather than adult affiliations) and cohort change in understanding religious stratification. The findings are somewhat mixed: while conservative Protestants born since 1960 are no less likely to finish high school than their mainline counterparts, the negative effect of a conservative Protestant background on college completion remains virtually unchanged for cohorts born before 1940, between 1940 and 1959, and between 1960 and 1972, even when controlling for family background. Conservative Protestants are keeping pace with the educational gains made by mainline Protestants in the postwar era, but other factors associated with a conservative Protestant background still exert a negative influence on educational attainment.     

The Religious and Political Origins of Evangelical Protestants’ Opposition to Environmental Spending

Evangelical Protestants are less likely than most other Americans to support environmental policies and spending to protect the natural environment. We use almost three decades of repeated cross‐sectional data to examine the factors that promote evangelicals’ opposition to environmental spending. Mediation models with bootstrapped standard errors show that affiliation with the Republican Party, biblical literalism, and religious service attendance mediate differences in support for environmental spending between evangelical Protestants and other Americans. The importance of these mediating variables, however, varies over time and by the group evangelicals are being compared to. Differences in support for environmental spending between evangelical and mainline Protestants, for example, are primarily due to views of the Bible, but not at all to Republican identification. The results shed light on the causal effects of religion on views of the environment, temporal changes in the social and political implications of religiosity, the persistence of divisive issues that support the continued existence of culture wars, and the future of government spending on environmental problems in a social context where scientific evidence is filtered through political and religious ideology.     

Faith versus practice: different bases for religiosity judgments by Jews and Protestants

Jewish tradition is focused much more on religious practice than on religious belief, whereas various denominations of Christianity focus about equally on religious practice and on faith. We explored whether this difference in dogma affects how Jews and Protestants judge religiosity. In Study 1, we showed that Jews and Protestants rated practice equally important in being religious, while Protestants rated belief more important than did Jews. In Study 2, Jewish participants' self‐rated religiosity was predicted by their extent of practice but not knowledge of Judaism or religious beliefs. In contrast, in Study 3, Protestants' self‐rated religiosity was predicted both by their extent of practice and belief, but not knowledge. In all, the results show that Jews and Protestants view the importance of practice in being religious similarly, but that belief is more important for Protestants. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fundamental(ist) attribution error: Protestants are dispositionally focused

Attribution theory has long enjoyed a prominent role in social psychological research, yet religious influences on attribution have not been well studied. We theorized and tested the hypothesis that Protestants would endorse internal attributions to a greater extent than would Catholics, because Protestantism focuses on the inward condition of the soul. In Study 1, Protestants made more internal, but not external, attributions than did Catholics. This effect survived controlling for Protestant work ethic, need for structure, and intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity. Study 2 showed that the Protestant-Catholic difference in internal attributions was significantly mediated by Protestants' greater belief in a soul. In Study 3, priming religion increased belief in a soul for Protestants but not for Catholics. Finally, Study 4 found that experimentally strengthening belief in a soul increased dispositional attributions among Protestants but did not change situational attributions. These studies expand the understanding of cultural differences in attributions by demonstrating a distinct effect of religion on dispositional attributions.     

Knowledge and Assertion in Korean

Evidence from life science, cognitive science, and philosophy supports the hypothesis that knowledge is a central norm of the human practice of assertion. However, to date, the experimental evidence supporting this hypothesis is limited to American anglophones. If the hypothesis is correct, then such findings will not be limited to one language or culture. Instead, we should find a strong connection between knowledge and assertability across human languages and cultures. To begin testing this prediction, we conducted three experiments on Koreans in Korean. In each case, the findings replicated prior results observed in Americans and were corroborated by key findings from new replication studies on Americans using materials back‐translated from Korean. These findings support the theory that there is a core, cross‐culturally robust human practice of assertion and that, according to the rules of this practice, assertions should express knowledge.     

Parental Divorce and the “Switching” of Religious Identity

This article examines the impact of parental divorce on the likelihood that an individual has changed their religious identify. Using data from the National Survey of Family and Households, we use a theoretical framework of family structure and community ties to test the hypothesis that religious mobility is more likely among children of divorce compared to those from intact families. Distinguishing between parental divorce in childhood and parental divorce in adulthood allows us to assess the impact of parental divorce on religious socialization. For individuals raised as either moderate Protestant, conservative Protestant or Catholic, parental divorce increases the likelihood of both switching to another religion and apostasy. The impact of divorce is particularly strong for Catholics and conservative Protestants, who are, in general, less likely to be religious mobile. These findings add religious disaffiliation to the set of likely sequelae of parental divorce. In addition, the results of the study highlight the need to consider the relationship between family structure and religious processes in a community context.     

Organizational variables needed for effective execution of population planning programmes in Pakistan

Although the organizational and administrative aspects of family planning and population programs are basic to their ultimate success, they have been little studied. Some of the organizational variables necessary to effective implementation of population planning programs in Pakistan are outlined. These variables are of 2 types: 1) intraorganizational; and 2) interorganizational. Field workers must have an adequate idea of the role they should play and an adequacy for such a role. Care should be taken in the selection of field workers. They should be assigned to areas where their clients will have socioeconomic backgrounds similar to their own. Family planning field workers should have regular opportunities to communicate with other types of field workers in other programs. Both vertical and horizontal communication among family planning workers is important. The success of family planning programs will ultimately depend on the effecting of social changes and larger changes in social values. In other words, family planning programs should occur in the larger context of development programs. Interdepartmental communication among various agencies involved with family planning and population is necessary.     

Families' Schemata of Social Relationships

Variation in views of the social environment held jointly by members of family units was examined from a theoretical perspective that specifies distinct kinds of variation among families in their beliefs about the fundamental nature of the social world. Associations compatible with theory were found between direct measures of family interaction and families' schemata of social relationships as assessed by using a felt figure technique. Additional evidence indicated that variation among families in the schemata displayed resulted from similar contributions by all individuals in a family studied. Findings support the existence of family social schemata — a family group's set of views about the organization of relationships in the social world — and indicate several dimensions by which these schemata vary from family to family.     

Couples' cultural values, shared parenting, and family emotional climate within Mexican American families

This study tested a model of shared parenting as its centerpiece that incorporates cultural values as predictors and family emotional climate as the outcome variable of interest. We aimed to assess the predictive power of the Mexican cultural values of familismo and simpatia over couples' shared parenting practices. We anticipated that higher levels of shared parenting would predict family emotional climate. The participants were 61 Mexican American, low income couples, with at least one child between 3 and 4 years of age, recruited from a home-based Head Start program. The predictive model demonstrated excellent goodness of fit, supporting the hypothesis that a positive emotional climate within the family is fostered when Mexican American couples practice a sufficient level of shared parenting. Empirical evidence was previously scarce on this proposition. The findings also provide evidence for the role of cultural values, highlighting the importance of family solidarity and avoidance of confrontation as a pathway to shared parenting within Mexican American couples.     

The cerebrovascular model of depression in late life

Depression in older people, especially depression with an older age of onset, may be a manifestation of acquired brain disease. The cerebrovascular model of depression, often referred to as "vascular depression," hypothesizes that otherwise clinically occult small vessel brain disease contributes to the pathogeneses of some late-life depressive conditions. This paper reviews several lines of evidence supporting the cerebrovascular model and addresses the limitations of the existing literature. Several directions for future research are noted, including empirical testing of the notion that cerebrovascular disease might underlie the pathogeneses of depression with prominent executive dysfunction or other cognitive impairments. At this time, there are no specific therapeutic options for patients with suspected vascular depression beyond standard approaches to depression treatments, although education about the possibly greater risks of chronicity should be included in treatment planning. Therapy of cerebrovascular risk factors and stroke-risk reduction are important as consistent with general practice guidelines, although it is not known whether this will reduce the incidence or improve the outcome of late-life depression.     

In God We Distrust: Christian Nationalism and Anti-Atheist Attitude

Prior research found that Christian nationalism, a belief that integrates Christian identity with American national identity, was associated with more negative views toward marginalized groups, such as religious minorities. Relatively less known is the relationship between Christian nationalism and attitudes toward atheists. Specifically, even less is known about whether or not Christian nationalism that is above individuals at the macro, geographic level may influence individual views of atheists. Using nationally representative multilevel data, this study found that higher individual Christian nationalism was associated with more negative views toward atheists. No robust state-level Christian nationalism influence was found for anti-atheist attitude. However, Blacks, relative to Whites, were less likely to view atheists negatively in states where Christian nationalism was higher. Meanwhile, in states where Christian nationalism was higher, Black Protestants were less prejudiced against atheists compared to Evangelical Protestants.     

The Growing Social and Moral Conflict Between Conservative Protestantism and Science

Due to conservative Protestant elites challenging scientists in the public sphere, and prominent scientists attacking religion, scholars have claimed that there is an increasing conflict between conservative Protestants and science. However, these claims have never been empirically investigated and these general claims do not specify what conflict is actually about. In this article I use the General Social Survey from 1984 to 2010 to examine whether conservative Protestants are increasingly opposed to the social and moral influence of scientists. I find evidence for increasing opposition by biblical literalist conservative Protestants to the involvement of scientists in social debates about moral issues.