Volunteering Among Latter‐Day Saints

In this article, we shed light on the volunteering behaviors of Latter‐Day Saints (Mormons). While some information was known about this group and its volunteering practices, detailed and reliable data were not available. This is the first study by a secular research institution to be given permission by the church to collect data within Latter‐Day Saint congregations. We found a high rate of volunteering by almost all members, which was mostly, but not only, for religious purposes. About half the volunteering comes from fulfilling “callings,” while members initiate the other half. We found variations in volunteering based on the studied regions, age, income, education, gender, and generational membership. These findings provide the first reliable and detailed information regarding Latter‐Day Saint volunteering and may serve as a springboard for future research on the pro‐social behaviors of various religious groups.     

Sexual Encounters and Manhood Acts: Evangelicals,Latter‐Day Saints,and Religious Masculinities

The experiences of men in traditional religions are complex, at times inconsistent, and not necessarily the direct result of religious teachings. This article draws from two qualitative case studies to examine the ways in which evangelical and Latter‐Day Saint men understand masculinity and their spiritual beliefs in the context of sexual activity. The authors present two masculine practices—acceptance of sexual rejection and sexual indifference—that allow religious men in this study to simultaneously challenge and uphold the system of hegemonic masculinity that their traditions promote. These findings point to the moments when creative, interpretative work helps religious men to reconcile their experiences with religious expectations and to alleviate the tensions they face in their everyday lives. This article offers new insights into how gender and sexuality studies may be integrated into the sociology of religion.     

Religious Identity,Expression, and Civility in Social Media: Results of Data Mining Latter‐Day Saint Twitter Accounts

This study explores religious self‐identification, religious expression, and civility among projected Latter‐Day Saint Twitter accounts (201,107 accounts and 1,542,229 tweets). Novel methods of data collection and analysis were utilized to test hypotheses related to religious identity and civility against social media data at a large scale. Results indicated that (1) projected LDS Twitter accounts tended to represent authentic (rather than anonymous or pseudonymous) identities; (2) local minority versus majority status did not influence users’ willingness to religiously self‐identify; (3) isolation stigma did not occur when users religiously self‐identified; (4) participants exhibited much lower degrees of incivility than was anticipated from previous studies; and (5) religious self‐identification was connected to improved civility. Results should be of interest to scholars of religion for better understanding participation patterns and religious identity among Latter‐Day Saints and for exploring how these results may transfer to other groups of religious people.     

Making and Unmaking Prejudice: Religious Affiliation Mitigates the Impact of Mortality Salience on Out‐Group Attitudes

Research inspired by terror management theory has established that being reminded of the inevitability of death (i.e., “mortality salience”) leads people to express more negative attitudes toward out‐groups. We examined the hypothesis that being affiliated with a religion may buffer individuals against this negative impact of mortality salience. Two studies, conducted in two cultures that differ in their emphasis on religiosity (the United Kingdom and Italy), supported this hypothesis. Specifically, we found that mortality salience resulted in more negative out‐group attitudes only among participants not affiliated with any religion. Further, this buffering effect of religious affiliation was not moderated by participants’ specific religious orientations or by their levels of social dominance orientation. In addition, the buffering effect did not hold when prejudice against the target out‐group was not proscribed by religious authorities. Implications for research on religion, prejudice, and terror management are discussed.