Gender, religion, and adolescent patterns of self-disclosure in the divided society of Northern Ireland

Adolescence is a period when levels of self-disclosure are often lowest. While studies have revealed a clear preference for female targets of disclosure, little research has been carried out on the effects of religion upon disclosure. The impact of religion was of importance in this investigation, given that it was conducted in Northern Ireland, where religion affects almost every aspect of social life. The aim was to ascertain the effects of gender and religious affiliation on adolescent disclosure to friends and strangers. Results revealed that while females were significantly higher disclosers than were males, religion per se did not play a key role. This suggests that even in a highly polarized society, gender is the central determinant of disclosure and is even more important than political identity. The implications of these findings are discussed, particularly with regard to the difficulty young males have in terms of revealing personal information.     

The religion paradox: if religion makes people happy, why are so many dropping out?

As we estimate here, 68% of human beings--4.6 billion people--would say that religion is important in their daily lives. Past studies have found that the religious, on average, have higher subjective well-being (SWB). Yet, people are rapidly leaving organized religion in economically developed nations where religious freedom is high. Why would people leave religion if it enhances their happiness? After controlling for circumstances in both the United States and world samples, we found that religiosity is associated with slightly higher SWB, and similarly so across four major world religions. The associations of religiosity and SWB were mediated by social support, feeling respected, and purpose or meaning in life. However, there was an interaction underlying the general trend such that the association of religion and well-being is conditional on societal circumstances. Nations and states with more difficult life conditions (e.g., widespread hunger and low life expectancy) were much more likely to be highly religious. In these nations, religiosity was associated with greater social support, respect, purpose or meaning, and all three types of SWB. In societies with more favorable circumstances, religiosity is less prevalent and religious and nonreligious individuals experience similar levels of SWB. There was also a person-culture fit effect such that religious people had higher SWB in religious nations but not in nonreligious nations. Thus, it appears that the benefits of religion for social relationships and SWB depend on the characteristics of the society.     

社会压力与决策角色对不同人际敏感性个体助人决策的影响

本研究基于人格的交互作用理论,通过时间与金钱两种助人决策情景,设计两个实验考察了人际敏感性特质对个体助人决策的影响,以及决策角色与社会压力两种情境因素在其中的作用。结果发现：(1)相比低人际敏感性,高人际敏感性个体更容易做出助人决策;(2)相比低社会压力,高社会压力下,高人际敏感性比低人际敏感性个体捐助的金钱更多; (3)高社会压力下,相比低人际敏感性个体,高人际敏感性个体为朋友与陌生人决策时会捐助更多的金钱。研究表明：人际敏感性影响个体的助人决策,决策角色与社会压力会对不同人际敏感性个体的助人决策有不同程度的影响。     

Extrinsic Religious Orientation and Well-Being: Is Their Negative Association Real or Spurious?

Turning to religion to seek its social benefits has been associated with poor psychological well-being. Researchers have concluded that endorsing this extrinsic and social orientation toward religion is inauthentic and unhealthy. However, few studies have focused on extrinsic-social religious orientation’s negative relationship with well-being, leaving open the possibility that their relationship is spurious. The present study argues that people endorsing an extrinsic-social religious orientation also perceive lower levels of social support in their lives, thus their turning to religion to fill this social void. As social support is important for healthy psychological functioning, perceived social support may be the critical third variable explaining why extrinsic-social religious orientation appears to have psychological costs. This study supported our expectations among undergraduates in two countries: the United States (N = 156) and the Republic of Ireland (N = 255). There were negative bivariate associations between extrinsic-social religious orientation and both perceived social support and emotional well-being. Accounting for the effects of perceived social support, however, reduced the association between the extrinsic-social religious orientation and well-being to non-significance. Thus, people endorsing an extrinsic and social orientation toward religion tend to have poor well-being because they perceive less supportive relationships in their lives.     

Social Support and the Religious Dimensions of Close Ties

Despite the influence of social support on physical and mental health, few studies have examined why some close ties are more supportive than others. Though religion provides a rich context for social interaction and a meaningful social identity, it has received little attention in the social support literature. A growing literature on religion and health offers insight into how religion affects social support processes. Using dyadic network data derived from the nationally representative 2006 Portraits of American Life Study, I examine how the religious dimensions of close, nonhousehold ties relate to provision of social support. Results from logistic regression analyses indicate that (controlling for a range of other social tie characteristics) same‐faith ties are significantly more likely to be sources of help “in times of need,” while religious discussion is a strong predictor of receiving both help and advice. The effect of religious homophily is strongest for evangelical Protestants and African‐American Protestants. My findings underscore the need for social support researchers to consider the role of religion in shaping support processes in close relationships.     

Does a Nation's Religious Composition Affect Generalized Trust? The Role of Religious Heterogeneity and the Percent Religious

Is religion more of an integrative or a divisive force in contemporary societies? We use multilevel analyses of World Values Survey data from 77,409 individuals in 69 countries to examine how both the percent of the population that is religious and the religious heterogeneity of a country are related to generalized social trust, the willingness of individuals to trust “most people.” When we first examine the main effects of the percent religious and religious heterogeneity we find no evidence that either variable is related to trust in the ways predicted by major theories. However, the combination of these two variables has a huge negative relationship with trust. Countries that are both highly religious and religiously heterogeneous (diverse) have, on average, levels of trust that are only half the average levels of countries with other combinations of these two variables. The results have important implications for understanding the role of religion in modern societies.     

Privatization or Deprivatization: British Attitudes About the Public Presence of Religion

Achterberg and colleagues conclude there is in train a significant change toward deprivatization in Europe. In the late 1990s Christians were more pro public religion in countries where they were least numerous and in the Netherlands in particular there had been an increasing difference in attitudes between believers and nonbelievers over 25 years. Examining more recent survey data on British attitudes (1998 and 2008), we find a firm consensus among the nonreligious against religion having a high public profile, while Christians are more likely to object to antireligion sentiment and people belonging to non‐Christian religions are more likely to support public religion. Nonreligious people appear to be no more hostile now than in the late 1990s, and where there has been a decrease in sympathy for public religion it is among religious groups.     

Reading the Silences,Questioning the Terms: A Response to the Focus on Eighteenth-Century Ethics

It is striking that most of the essays in this Focus do not explore the specifically religious aspects of Enlightenment ethical thought. A principled reason for this may be found in a conception of religion that makes it hard for Enlightenment thinkers to seem religious at all. Neither does this conception fit anything that is likely to be a live option for most people today, and the now prevalent unpopularity of eighteenth-century piety and religious thought may blind us to important religious possibilities.     

Religious involvement,helping others,and psychological well-being

This study has two goals. The first goal is to see if involvement in religion is associated with providing tangible support to family members and strangers. The second goal is to see if providing tangible support to family members and strangers is associated with well-being. A conceptual model, which was developed to address these issues, contains the following core relationships: (1) individuals who go to church more often will receive more spiritual support from coreligionists; (2) those who receive more spiritual support will provide more tangible assistance to family members and strangers; and (3) people who help family members and strangers will report greater life satisfaction and higher self-esteem. Findings from a nationwide survey support all but one of these relationships. More specifically, the results suggest that providing tangible support to family members is associated with greater well-being, but providing tangible support to strangers is not associated with well-being.     

Parental Religious Socialization Practices,Connectedness With Others,and Depressive Symptoms in Late Life

This purpose of this study is to examine two constructs that have been largely overlooked in the study of religious involvement among older people: parental religious socialization practices and feelings of connectedness with others. The data are from an ongoing nationwide survey of older people. Findings from a latent variable model that was designed to examine the two focal constructs provide support for the following relationships: (a) older people whose parents encouraged them to become more involved in religion are more likely to attend worship services, (b) older people whose parents promoted religious involvement and older individuals who attend church more often are more likely to report that they see a fundamental connection among all human beings, (c) older adults who feel more closely connected to others will be more likely to forgive people for the things they have done, and (d) older people who are more forgiving are likely to experience fewer symptoms of depression over time.     

Parental Religious Socialization Practices, Connectedness With Others, and Depressive Symptoms in Late Life

This purpose of this study is to examine two constructs that have been largely overlooked in the study of religious involvement among older people: parental religious socialization practices and feelings of connectedness with others. The data are from an ongoing nationwide survey of older people. Findings from a latent variable model that was designed to examine the two focal constructs provides support for the following relationships:(1) older people whose parents encouraged them to become more involved in religion are more likely to attend worship services; (2) older people whose parents promoted religious involvement and older individuals who attend church more often are more likely to report that they see a fundamental connection among all human beings; (3) older adults who feel more closely connected to others will be more likely to forgive people for the things they have done; and (4) older people who are more forgiving are likely to experience fewer symptoms of depression over time.     

Social Class and Finding a Congregation: How Attendees are Introduced to Their Congregations

Despite the large numbers of Americans switching religious congregations each year, social scientists know relatively little about how people are introduced to new religious congregations. In this research note, I use multiple surveys of congregants??two surveys of Presbyterians in the 1990s and a survey of attendees from a random sample of congregations in 2001??to examine the effects of education and income on how attendees are introduced to their religious congregations. Results show that education and income are key predictors of how attendees find their congregations. In general, Americans with low levels of education and income are disproportionately likely to be introduced to their congregations through their social networks while those with higher levels of education and income are more likely to rely on denominational affiliation. These results address fundamental assumptions underlying theories of social class and religion and also provide religious leaders with valuable insight into the factors that influence how people are introduced to new religious congregations.     

The Doubting Process: A Longitudinal Study of the Precipitants and Consequences of Religious Doubt in Older Adults

Religious doubt arises from a process in which there is a precipitant, the experience of doubt, a coping response, and a health-related outcome. We assess whether social factors precipitate doubt and the coping responses that are invoked to deal with doubt. We evaluate whether these coping responses are, in turn, associated with health. Over time, people who encounter more negative interaction with fellow congregants have more doubts about religion, whereas more spiritual support and greater involvement in prayer groups are associated with less religious doubt. People who encounter more negative interaction are more likely to suppress religious doubts, but people who attend Bible study groups are more likely to seek spiritual growth when faced with doubt. Suppressing religious doubt is associated with less favorable health, whereas seeking spiritual growth has no significant effect.     

Religious Non-involvement Among African Americans, Black Caribbeans and Non-hispanic Whites: Findings from the National Survey of American Life

This study examines the association between race/ethnicity, socio-demographic characteristics, and religious non-involvement among a national sample of African Americans, Black Caribbeans and Non-Hispanic Whites. The relationship between religious non-involvement and selected measures of religious participation, spirituality, religious coping is also examined. The study utilizes data from a national multi-stage probability sample, the National Survey of American Life (n = 6,082). Very few individuals, <1 out of 20 respondents, both never attended religious services and have no current denomination. Overall, <8 % have never attended religious services since the age of 18. Both African Americans and Black Caribbeans were significantly less likely than non-Hispanic Whites to report never attending religious services and not having a current denomination. The greater reliance upon religious institutions for support and guidance among African Americans and Black Caribbean Americans relative to Non-Hispanic Whites may help explain the importance of race in predicting religious non-involvement. Women, married persons, Southerners, and the more highly educated are significantly more likely to be involved in religion. Finally, this study indicates that the religiously non-involved are less likely than others to participate in religious activities, to identify as spiritual, and to rely upon religion to cope with trying circumstances. Nonetheless, even respondents who never attend religious services and do not have a denomination still report some level of religious participation along with relatively high levels of religious coping. We posit that religious non-involvement is less indicative of apostasy, but rather likely reflects a critique of organized religion.     

Individual Differences in Religious Motivation Influence How People Think

Motives matter and may have implications for how people cognitively experience meaning through religion and spirituality. Specifically, intrinsically motivated people perceive religion and spirituality are more central to meaning in life, which should promote a tendency to adopt more coherent, expansive cognitive representations. In contrast, extrinsically motivated people may adopt narrower cognitive representations since their motivation is more proximally oriented. The present study tests these possibilities by examining how religious motivation relates to action identification (tendency to use coherent, higher‐level cognitive representations). Results from 630 participants revealed that among religious people, intrinsic and extrinsic‐personal religious motivations indirectly influence higher‐level action identification through strength of spiritual beliefs. These relationships were not evident among nonreligious people. Furthermore, extrinsic‐social religious motivation and religious service attendance did not relate to action identification. These findings demonstrate that religious motivation differences are consequential for the action identities people rely upon to form a sense of meaning.     

Observations of Muslim Physicians Regarding the Influence of Religion on Health and Their Clinical Approach

Although most patients report wanting their physicians to address the religious aspects of their lives, most physicians do not initiate questions concerning religion with their patients. Although religion plays a major role in every aspect of the life of a Muslim, most of the data on the role of religion in health have been conducted in populations that are predominantly non-Muslim. The objectives of this study were to assess Muslim physicians' beliefs and behaviours regarding religious discussions in clinical practice and to understand the factors that facilitate or impede discussion of religion in clinical settings. The study is based on a cross-sectional survey. Muslim physicians working in a tertiary care hospital in Saudi Arabia were invited to complete a questionnaire that included demographic data; intrinsic level of religiosity; beliefs about the impact of religion on health; and observations, attitudes, behaviours, and barriers to attending to patients' religious needs. Out of 225 physicians, 91% agreed that religion had a positive influence on health, but 62.2% thought that religion could lead to the refusal of medically indicated therapy. Over half of the physicians queried never asked about religious issues. Family physicians were more likely to initiate religious discussions, and physicians with high intrinsic religiosity were more likely to share their own religious views. Residents and staff physicians tended to avoid such discussions. The study results highlight the fact that many physicians do not address patients' religious issues and that there is a need to clarify ethically sound means by which to address such needs in Islamic countries. Medical institutions should work to improve the capacity of medical personnel to appropriately address religious issues. The training of clinical religious advisors is a promising solution to this dilemma.     

Religion and Helping Charitable Causes

Two studies assessed the relationship between religiousness and various measures of self-reported helping behavior, as well as actual volunteering for charitable causes. Results indicated that, although religious students in this study (as measured by a Christian Orthodoxy scale) indicated that they were more likely to volunteer to help in religion-related contexts, they did not report being, nor were they actually, more likely than less religious individuals to volunteer to help (nonreligious) charitable groups. Consistent with past research, however, those with an intrinsic religious orientation did volunteer to help charitable groups more than did those with an extrinsic religious orientation.     

Does religious priming increase the prosocial behaviour of a Japanese sample in an anonymous economic game?

We examined the effect of religious priming on a Japanese sample in an anonymous dictator game whereas previous studies on religious priming on prosociality had mainly been conducted within Western contexts. The current study attempted to examine whether religion increases prosocial behaviour in a Japanese sample through the replication of ‘God is Watching You’ (Shariff & Norenzayan, 2007) where it was found that participants primed with religion‐related words and secular justice‐related words behaved more prosocially than participants primed with neutral words in an anonymous dictator game. The current experiment was conducted with Japanese students (n = 106) to examine whether the results of the original study could be applied to Japanese people. The results showed that among the three priming conditions (control, religion, secular justice), there was no difference in the amount of money participants allocated to anonymous strangers, although in the secular justice priming condition, theists allocated more money than atheists. The results might be due to the fact that the religious priming words used in the original study did not precisely activate the propositional network of religion that Japanese participants have. More culture‐specific studies are necessary to examine how religious priming works for non‐Westerners.     

Religious Ambivalence,Liminality, and the Increase of No Religious Preference in the United States, 2006–2014

Americans identified less and less with organized religion over the past two decades. Yet apparently, many people who no longer identify with a religion are not consistently nonreligious. Reinterviews reveal that many people who express no religious preference in one survey name a religion when asked the same question in a subsequent interview. Past research called this phenomenon a “liminal” status. This article improves estimates of liminality by using three interviews and a better statistical model. About 20 percent of Americans were liminal in recent years, 10 percent were consistently nonreligious, and 70 percent were consistently religious. Falling religious identification in cross‐sectional data over the last three decades reflects slow change in religious identity, but some of the rise of the nones is due to more liminals saying they have no religion. Liminals appear equally among people raised conservative Protestant, mainline Protestant, or Catholic.     

Family Formation and Returning to Institutional Religion in Young Adulthood

Institutional religious involvement wanes during young adulthood, but evidence suggests life‐course factors such as family formation bring people back to religion. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Waves 1, 3, and 4), we examine how often young adults who were involved in institutional religion as adolescents return—measured by religious service attendance and religious affiliation—after leaving in emerging adulthood, and how this return is patterned by family formation. The majority of young adults who leave do not return to regular religious service attendance, regardless of their family formation. But single parents, married parents, and childless married individuals are more likely, and childless cohabiting couples less likely, to return to religious communities than those who are both single and childless. Only married parents are more likely than childless singles to reaffiliate, though there is marginal evidence that childless married adults may also be more likely. Thus, the institutions of religion and family are still linked, even though overall levels of religious return are not as high as expected.