Religiosity and Politics Flashcards
Is religiosity a personality characteristic?
Religiosity is driven by situational factors
- Religious socialization
- Negative life events
- Positive self-transcendent experiences 積極的自我超越的經驗
But religiosity
Also manifested 表現 in many behaviours across situations
e. g., praying, reading, attending services,…
- involves a variety of behaviours, thoughts, and feelings
Unlike personality traits, individual differences in religiosity
Depend on people’s beliefs, whereas personality traits do not depend on beliefs
Involve an entire way of living
Bonding
Belonging
Differences in motivations
“intrinsic religiosity” vs. “extrinsic religiosity”
Religiosity and personality dimensions
Saroglou: meta-analysis of 71 studies, examine the ‘personal religiosity’
‘Personal religiosity’: beliefs and practices referring to a transcendent being and legitimized, to some extent, by an established tradition or group
Associations with personality traits are not very strong
- Agreeableness (r = .19) and Conscientiousness (r = .16) are the two main personality characteristics of religiousness
Are high A and high C people more attracted to religion or does religion make people high in A and C?
Longitudinal study by Wink et al. (2007):
Personality in adolescence predicts religiosity in late adulthood
High A people: social harmony, positive qualities in human relations, and the idea of a protective and loving God
High C people: the meaningfulness of life and the world, order in the universe through a sense of transcendence, and disciplined pursuit of valued goals
Saroglou (2010) also investigated religious fundamentalism and spirituality
Religious fundamentalism: strict obedience and unquestioning devotion; authoritarian and dogmatic religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
- Negatively related to O
Spiritualism: emphasis on individual experience (often intense feeling), independence of religious traditions and beliefs
Positively related to Openness to Experience
High O people
Inquisitive and unconventional: question religious traditions, rules, practices
Imaginative, feel connected to nature
-> seek spirituality
Religiosity of the family/household/parents strongly related to individual differences in religiosity
Personality variables may, however, affect this association
McCullough, Tsang, and Brion (2003):
Emotional (in)stability (= Neuroticism)
Sample of intelligent children from 1922-23 and follow-up in 1940-41
Weaker association (less religious) for emotional stable children compared to unstable children when the children have very strict religious upbringing - unstable are more religious
-> Emotionally unstable children may want to avoid conflict with parents/family, so they are more likely to stick with the religious
Altemeyer and Hunsberger (1997): Interviews with
“Amazing Apostates”: very non-religious people raised in a very religious household
“Amazing Believers”: very religious people raised in a very nonreligious household
Apostates - Conversion followed after thinking a great deal about their religion; period of reason and reflection and experiencing increasing doubts about their religion
Believers - conversion was more sudden, after a period of intense personal crisis; driven by passion and emotion suggesting a strong need for a sense of community and structure
Change and stability in religiosity: How do individual levels of religiosity change across the life-span?
McCullough et al (2005): Followed a sample of intelligent children from 1940 to 1991
Found a very small average increase in religiosity, But different patterns of change in religiosity
High - increasing
Low – declining
Parabolic - religious in early adulthood, becoming more so in midlife, then less religious through the remainder of the life course.
How stable are individual differences in religiosity?
McCullough et al (2005)
Fairly high level of stability Between 1940 and 1991 (51 years!): r = .55
For shorter spans (between 5 and 17 years): r’s = .61 to .92(!)
Religiosity and life outcomes
Health and Longevity 壽命
Life satisfaction
Health and Longevity: McCullough, Hoyt, Larson, Koenig, and Koenig (2000)
Meta-analysis estimated the extent to which religious involvement is significantly associated with the odds of being alive at follow-up
Religious persons were about 25% less likely to die during the period of the study
Because of a healthier lifestyle
- More support (psychological, financial,…) from community
- Better recovery from illness due to less stress/more optimism
Life satisfaction: Salsman, Brown, Brechting, and Carlson (2005)
Intrinsic religiousness and prayer fulfilment = greater life satisfaction
Partly attributable to greater optimism and more social support
Religion
- Is religiosity a personality characteristic?
- Religiosity and personality dimensions
- Change and stability in religiosity
- Religiosity and life outcomes
Politics
- The Authoritarian Personality
- Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA)
- Social Dilemma Orientation
- Dual Process Model of Ideology and Prejudice
- Social attitudes and personality
- Attitudes and behaviours towards non-human animals
- Genetic and environmental influence
- The Authoritarian Personality
Right-wing extremism = syndrome of authoritarian personality
Landmark study in social/political psychology
Psychodynamic (Freudian) theory of the development of authoritarianism
- Harsh, punitive parenting and rigid parental values cause a tension between anxiety/fear of disapproval and punishment and hostility/anger towards parents (“intra-psychic conflict”)
- Suppression of impulses leads to displacement of aggression towards ‘safer’ / ‘weaker’ targets such as ethnic minorities
- > Reflects the dynamics of authoritarian submission and aggression
Anti-Semitic attitudes co-vary with other characteristics such as anti-democratic tendencies, ethnocentrism, political and economic conservatism
Adorno et al. found positive associations between these constructs in survey studies
F-scale
- Based on interviews looking for common patterns in attitudes, behaviours, histories
The F-scale
- Conventionalism 傳統主義
- Authoritarian submission 專制順從
- Authoritarian aggression
- Anti-intraception: Opposition to the subjective, the imaginative
- Superstition 迷信 and stereotypy:
- Pre-occupation with power and toughness
- Destructiveness and cynicism
- Projectivity
- Pre-occupation with sex
Conventionalism
Rigid adherence to traditional, middle class norms and values
e.g. A person who has bad manners, habits, and breeding can hardly expect to get along with decent people
Authoritarian submission
Submissive, uncritical attitude toward in-group authorities
e.g. Young people sometimes get rebellious ideas, but as they grow up they ought to get over them and settle down.
Authoritarian aggression
Support for rejection and punishment of people who violate conventional norms 懲罰違反傳統規範的人
e.g. Sex crimes, such as rape and attacks on children, deserve more than mere imprisonment; such criminals ought to be publicly whipped, or worse
Anti-intraception
Opposition to the subjective, the imaginative
e.g. When a person has a problem or worry, it is best for him not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things.
Superstition and stereotypy
Belief in mystical determinants of individual’s fate
e.g. Some day it will probably be shown that astrology 占卜 can explain a lot of things
Pre-occupation with power and toughness
Excessive concern with dominance-submission, strong-weak, leader-follower dimension
e.g. It is best to use some prewar authorities in Germany to keep order and prevent chaos.
Destructiveness and cynicism
General hostility toward humanity
e.g. Human nature being what it is, there will always be war and conflict
Projectivity
Outward projection of unconscious impulses leading to dangerous world beliefs
e.g. Nowadays when so many different kinds of people move around and mix together so much, a person has to protect himself especially carefully against catching an infection or disease from them
Pre-occupation with sex
e.g. The wild sex life of the old Greeks and Romans was tame compared to some of the goings-on in this country, even in places where people might least expect it
Problems with the F-scale
Acquiescence bias: All items were worded in the same directions (no reversed-keyed items)
-> Some people tend to agree with all items irrespective of the content
No support for 9 different factors
Studies using reversed items obtained low reliability coefficients
Problems with the theory (authoritarian personality)
No empirical evidence for Freudian/psychodynamic theoretical assumptions
- Right-Wing authoritarianism
Altemeyer (1981, 1988, 1996) developed the Right-Wing Authoritarianism scale (RWA)
Improved authoritarianism scale based on the F-scale
RWA-scale includes reverse-keyed items
3 (instead of 9) tendencies:
- Conventionalism
- Authoritarian submission
- Authoritarian aggression
Tendencies are theoretically assumed to be strongly related
Better reliability
Conventionalism
Adherence to social conventions endorsed by established in-group authorities
e.g. Women should have to promise to obey their husbands when they get married
Authoritarian submission
Uncritical submission/obedience to established authorities
e.g. Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn
Authoritarian aggression
Support for aggressiveness towards norm violators/deviants/outgroups
e.g. What our country really needs is a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and take us back to our true path
Social-cognitive approach instead of psychodynamic
Social learning during adolescence:
Harsh punishment leads to conformity, whereas tolerance leads to autonomy
Studies show that RWA is associated with
- Willingness to give harsher punishments to criminals
- Approval of restrictions on civil liberties
- Ethnocentrism
- Anti-gay/anti-lesbian attitudes
- Traditional gender roles
- Support for aggressive military force
- (extreme) Right-wing voting and party preferences
- Opposition to environmental movement
- Social Dominance Orientation (SDO)
SDO = Individual differences in desire for hierarchical vs. equal group relations in society
SDO-scale measures support for
- group-based dominance
- intergroup inequality
Social Dominance Theory
Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, and Malle (1994)
Hierarchical social order are maintained through individual and institutional discrimination
People differ in the extent to which they endorse attitudes, beliefs, ideologies, justifying group inequality and the oppression of some group by others: “legitimizing myths”
Two functional types of legitimizing myths:
- Hierarchy-enhancing ideologies
- Hierarchy-attenuating ideologies
Hierarchy-enhancing ideologies
e.g., racism or meritocracy
Greater levels of group-based inequality
e.g. Some groups of people are just more worthy than others
Hierarchy-attenuating ideologies
e.g., anarchism and feminism
Greater levels of group-based equality.
e.g. It would be good if all groups could be equal
Extensive evidence shows that SDO is related to
Prejudice towards a wide range of social groups
- sexism, racism, anti-immigrant prejudice
Opposition to progressive and social policies, affirmative action policies
Support for military spending / military force
SDO and RWA are positively interrelated but are too weakly correlated to suggest that both variables represent the same construct
SDO is only weakly related to authoritarian submission
Social dominators do not necessarily value conventions and traditions; only if these preserve hierarchical societal structures
- Dual Process Model of Ideology and Prejudice
Duckitt, 2001; Duckitt et al., 2002
RWA and SDO both predict a range of criterion variables related to political and intergroup issues
Two variables account for a different aspect in out-group prejudice
Adherence to social norms (RWA)
Preference for inequality (SDO)
- > RWA and SDO: complementary predictors of ethnocentrism and out-group prejudice
- > Two together produce a correlation considerably higher than either alone
Both RWA and SDO were introduced as ‘personality’ constructs but research suggests that both constructs are…
Influenced by contextual factors
Predicted by ‘core’ personality traits
Interestingly, different contextual factors and personality traits predict RWA and SDO
RWA and SDO represent two independent dimensions of social attitudes expressing different motivational goals
RWA: establish and maintain societal control, stability, and cohesion
SDO: asserting power and group dominance
Threatening context + Personality: Social conformity -> Dangerous Worldview ->
RWA -> Prejudice towards threatening and low-status out-groups
Competitive context + Personality: Tough-mindedness -> Competitive Jungle Worldview ->
SDO -> Prejudice towards threatening and low-status out-groups
Effects of dangerous and competitive worldviews on RWA and SDO over a five months period of time
Sibley, Wilson, & Duckitt
RWA was so much higher than SDO
- Social attitudes and personality
Sibley and Duckitt (2008): Meta-analysis of 71 studies (N = 22,068)
Low Openness to experience = higher RWA
High Conscientiousness = higher RWA
-> low O and high C = social conformity
Low Agreeableness = high SDO
Honesty-Humility (HEXACO) = high SDO
- What about attitudes and behaviours towards non-human animals?
(Dhont & Hodson, 2014)
Speciesism is a prejudice similar to racism or sexism
- using animals as objects for human benefit
- meat consumption
High RWA = stick to cultural traditions and norms, also with respect to the use and consumption of animals
Vegetarianism/veganism are a threat to societal norms
High SDOs show a generalized striving for dominance, not restricted to human out-groups
Group-based dominance of humans over animals / human supremacy beliefs
Vegetarianism/veganism is a threat to the dominant meat-culture
Example items of Vegetarianism threat
Vegetarians should have more respect for our traditional eating customs, which meat consumption is simply a part of
Nowadays, when it comes to nutrition and meals, people listen too much to what a minority of vegetarians wants
Example items of Human Supremacy Beliefs
The life of an animal is just not of equal value as the life of a human being
In an ideal world, humans and animals would be treated on an equal basis (reverse-coded)
RWA -> Threat perception ->…
Meat consumption + Speciesism support for exploitation of animals
SDO -> Threat perception + Human supremacy ->…
Meat consumption + Speciesism support for exploitation of animals
