Gregory Acevedo
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 235233 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Gregory Acevedo |
| NOMBRES | Gregory |
| APELLIDO | Acevedo |
| FIRMA | ACEVEDO G |
| AFILIACIONES | The University of Texas at San Antonio |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2125-722X |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 30 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 93 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 30 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2005 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
Do Authoritarians Support Political Violence
Research has linked the authoritarian personality with support for political violence, including violence against the government. However, support for political violence is simultaneously a measure of and an outcome of the authoritarian personality, and one key component (submission to authority) is the antithesis of one key measure of political violence (violence against authority). This article makes three contributions. First, we accentuate th…
You have to budget within the money you have’
Job Insecurity and Happiness Among Muslim Americans
A substantial body of literature has examined the factors predicting happiness among various groups; however, few studies have systematically focused on happiness and related factors among Muslim Americans. Within the framework of the stress-process paradigm, this current study addresses fundamental arguments regarding job insecurity as a key predictor of happiness and the role of religious involvement as a buffering factor against the deleteriou…
Predictors of Food Insecurity and Childhood Hunger in the Bronx During the Covid-19 Pandemic
The little I receive is not enough’’
“Electronic Church” 2.0
Over the past four decades, studies have consistently shown that regular attendance at religious services is associated with better mental and physical health. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many congregations paused in-person religious services and moved their worship rituals online. The ways that churches have responded to the threat of infectious disease require new conceptualizations and operationalizations of religious attendance and…
Is it the Sermon or the Choir? Pastoral Support, Congregant Support, and Worshiper Mental Health
Background Although religious involvement tends to be associated with improved mental health, additional work is needed to identify the specific aspects of religious practice that are associated with positive mental health outcomes. Our study advances the literature by investigating how two unique forms of religious social support are associated with mental health. Purpose We explore whether support received in religious settings from fellow cong…
Coping with an Evil World
This research note advances the religious coping literature by testing whether belief in an evil world conditions the stress-moderating role of scripture reading. Hypotheses are tested with original data from a survey of black, Hispanic, and white American churchgoers from South Texas (2017-2018; n = 1,115). Our findings show that reading scripture for insights into the future attenuates the positive association between major life events and psyc…
Islamic Strangers
Using nationally representative survey data from the 2011 Pew Muslim American Survey, this study investigates how the combined effects of religiosity, personal networks, and attitudes toward American society shape the subjective identities of Muslims residing in the United States. We draw on social identity theory, Simmel’s notion of the “stranger,” and past research on subjective identity among faith groups to examine U.S. Muslim identity prefer…
Islam and Support for Gender Inequality among Women in Turkey
Turkey has been characterized as a nation that exhibits an amalgam of Eastern and Western cultural values. For a lengthy period of time, Turkey had prohibited Muslim women’s wearing of the veil in many public venues. Yet, the vast majority of this nation’s citizens are highly devout Muslims. Our study uses these paradoxes as a springboard for investigating early twenty-first century religious influences on Turkish Muslim women’s attitudes toward …
Religion and Gender Ideologies among Working-Age U.S. Latinas/os
Numerous studies have documented religious variations in gender ideology in the United States. Despite growth, diversification, and religious ferment among Latinas/os, few have investigated this topic within the Latina/o population. Drawing on insights from gender theory and prior empirical research, we develop several hypotheses regarding the links between religious affiliation, belief, and practice and three distinct domains of traditionalist g…
Contextualizing Events in Imagined Communities
The ongoing denigration of Arabs in the media, the Western democratic political shifts away from Muslim religious freedom, and increasing anxiety about Muslim radicalization prompt the question: How do Arabs respond to global events when the Muslim and Western worlds are perceived to clash? Our study draws on the theory of imagined communities to examine the extent to which exogenous world events influence attitudes towards out-group members in t…
Prayer, Meditation, and Anxiety
Durkheim argued that religion's emphasis on the supernatural combined with its unique ability to foster strong collective bonds lent it power to confer distinctive social benefits. Subsequent research has confirmed these propositions with respect to religion and mental health. At the same time, meditation has been linked to mental health benefits in intervention-based studies. Our investigation offers a unique test of two comparable inhibitors of…
Secular Volunteerism among Texan Emerging Adults
Prior research suggests that religiosity, especially public religious participation, is related to greater volunteerism. However, less is known about religious transmission across the life course, in particular whether and how religiosity in childhood is linked to later life volunteerism. This study investigates a sample of emerging adults in South Texas (n = 701) with a high percent of Hispanic Americans (53 percent). Specifically, we examine pa…
Bodyweight Perceptions among Texas Women
Despite previous work exploring linkages between religious participation and health, little research has looked at the role of religion in affecting bodyweight perceptions. Using the theoretical model developed by Levin et al. (Sociol Q 36(1):157-173, 1995 ) on the multidimensionality of religious participation, we develop several hypotheses and test them by using data from the 2004 Survey of Texas Adults. We estimate multinomial logistic regress…
True Believers? Religion, Physiology, and Perceived Body Weight in Texas
Sectarian Affiliation and Gender Traditionalism
This paper will add to the expanding scholarship in the sociology of Islam and explore the influence of Sunni-Shi’a affiliation on views of gender traditionalism. Using a subset of the World Values Survey, we contrast views towards women’s roles in society held by Sunni and Shi’a respondents in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan (n = 10,799). Our findings suggest that views of gender traditionalism are not solely a function of sectarian affiliation…
Religion and Child-Rearing Values in Turkey
Numerous studies have examined the connection between religion and child-rearing values-operationalized in terms of the importance placed on specific traits in children-in the United States and other mainly Christian societies. Much of this work involves the relative priority placed on 'intellectual heteronomy' (obedience to authority) versus 'intellectual autonomy' (thinking for oneself). Here, we augment this work focusing on Turkey, a predomin…
Religion, Cultural Clash, and Muslim American Attitudes About Politically Motivated Violence
Does adherence to Islam predict attitudes about 'suicide bombing' among American Muslims? This study examines the effects of religious and political factors on views of politically motivated violence (PMV). We draw from diverse scholarship, emphasizing arguments that are inspired by Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations perspective, as well as recent work in the sociology of Islam. Using a measure that gauges support for 'suicide bombing' fr…
Is It Really Religion? Comparing the Main and Stress-buffering Effects of Religious and Secular Civic Engagement on Psychological Distress
Using a random sample of adult residents from the state of Texas, we examine how religious participation and secular civic engagement buffer the effects of perceived financial strain and neighborhood disadvantage on psychological distress. Our findings suggest that (a) both organizational religious and secular civic engagement buffer the deleterious effects of perceived financial hardship on respondents’ psychological distress, (b) organizational…
Social Justice and the Urban Obesity Crisis
Social problems reflect the complexity of human behavior and social environments, and our society’s well-intentioned attempts to grapple with these challenges have often fallen short of their inten
Blood, War, and Ritual
What social factors predict human sacrifice in premodern societies? After summarising key insights from competing theoretical perspectives that seek to explain the presence of human sacrifice in premodern societies, we empirically assess the explanatory utility of each theory. We draw from Stark's ‘moral communities’ argument and Alexander and Smith's insights regarding cultural autonomy to highlight how the macro-level organisation of premodern …
Faith, Race‐Ethnicity, and Public Policy Preferences
Research has demonstrated that white conservative Protestants are more opposed to abortion than their Catholic counterparts. At the same time, conservative Protestantism has made significant inroads among U.S. Latinos. This study augments existing research on religion and racial‐ethnic variations in abortion attitudes by comparing levels of support for legalized abortion among Catholic and conservative Protestant Latinos. Data are drawn from a na…
Hip Hop Perceptions and Exposure as Predictors of School Outcomes for Black and Latino Adolescents
This study examines the relationship between rap music exposure and perceptions of 351 Black and Latino adolescents and their academic and behavioral outcomes. Findings suggest that adolescents in this study were able to identify both positive and negative aspects of rap music genre. Adolescents who perceived rap music as having socially relevant and empowering qualities had better school outcomes. Exposure to rap videos had a more negative relat…
Narrative inversion as a tactical framing device
This paper will draw from recent work in the study of counter-narratives and will apply a sociologically informed perspective to the empirical analysis of discourse. By focusing on the Black Nationalist group The Nation of Islam (NOI) this article will introduce the counter-narrative strategy of “narrative inversion.” Based on discursive analysis of textual materials from early NOI speeches, recordings, and writings, we hope to show how the NOI e…
Faith, Race‐Ethnicity, and Public Policy Preferences
Research has demonstrated that white conservative Protestants are more opposed to abortion than their Catholic counterparts. At the same time, conservative Protestantism has made significant inroads among U.S. Latinos. This study augments existing research on religion and racial‐ethnic variations in abortion attitudes by comparing levels of support for legalized abortion among Catholic and conservative Protestant Latinos. Data are drawn from a na…
Turning Anomie on its Head
Durkheim's underdeveloped notion of fatalism is the keystone for a bridge between two conceptual categories central to Marxian and Durkheimian theory: alienation and anomie. Durkheim does not necessarily disagree with Marx that excessive regulation can be socially damaging but chooses to highlight the effects of under-regulation. A Durkheimian critique of overregulation becomes possible if we turn away from anomie and toward Durkheim's idea of fa…
Islamic Fatalism and the Clash of Civilizations
This paper will address the question of Islamic fatalism. Survey data will be used to assess Samuel P. Huntington's controversial "Clash of Civilizations" thesis and its emphasis on fatalism as an inherent characteristic of Islamic religion. The concept of fatalism is expanded and theorized as a function of both structural and theological dimensions. Findings here suggest that fatalism in the Islamic world remains a largely misunderstood phenomen…
Religion, Cultural Clash, and Muslim American Attitudes About Politically Motivated Violence
Does adherence to Islam predict attitudes about 'suicide bombing' among American Muslims? This study examines the effects of religious and political factors on views of politically motivated violence (PMV). We draw from diverse scholarship, emphasizing arguments that are inspired by Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations perspective, as well as recent work in the sociology of Islam. Using a measure that gauges support for 'suicide bombing' fr…
Prayer, Meditation, and Anxiety
Durkheim argued that religion's emphasis on the supernatural combined with its unique ability to foster strong collective bonds lent it power to confer distinctive social benefits. Subsequent research has confirmed these propositions with respect to religion and mental health. At the same time, meditation has been linked to mental health benefits in intervention-based studies. Our investigation offers a unique test of two comparable inhibitors of…
Sectarian Affiliation and Gender Traditionalism
This paper will add to the expanding scholarship in the sociology of Islam and explore the influence of Sunni-Shi’a affiliation on views of gender traditionalism. Using a subset of the World Values Survey, we contrast views towards women’s roles in society held by Sunni and Shi’a respondents in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan (n = 10,799). Our findings suggest that views of gender traditionalism are not solely a function of sectarian affiliation…
Religion and Child-Rearing Values in Turkey
Numerous studies have examined the connection between religion and child-rearing values-operationalized in terms of the importance placed on specific traits in children-in the United States and other mainly Christian societies. Much of this work involves the relative priority placed on 'intellectual heteronomy' (obedience to authority) versus 'intellectual autonomy' (thinking for oneself). Here, we augment this work focusing on Turkey, a predomin…
Secular Volunteerism among Texan Emerging Adults
Prior research suggests that religiosity, especially public religious participation, is related to greater volunteerism. However, less is known about religious transmission across the life course, in particular whether and how religiosity in childhood is linked to later life volunteerism. This study investigates a sample of emerging adults in South Texas (n = 701) with a high percent of Hispanic Americans (53 percent). Specifically, we examine pa…
Narrative inversion as a tactical framing device
This paper will draw from recent work in the study of counter-narratives and will apply a sociologically informed perspective to the empirical analysis of discourse. By focusing on the Black Nationalist group The Nation of Islam (NOI) this article will introduce the counter-narrative strategy of “narrative inversion.” Based on discursive analysis of textual materials from early NOI speeches, recordings, and writings, we hope to show how the NOI e…
The Fatalistic Imagination and the Continued Salience of Religion in the Modern World
The resource compensation hypothesis predicts that religiosity will serve as a cognitive buffer against structural constraints whereby more religious individuals will exhibit lower levels of fatalism than their less religious counterparts. The resource amplification perspective, on the other hand, predicts that religiosity will foster a sense that otherworldly forces control life's outcomes, leading to higher levels of fatalism. Using a precise m…
Is it the Sermon or the Choir? Pastoral Support, Congregant Support, and Worshiper Mental Health
Background Although religious involvement tends to be associated with improved mental health, additional work is needed to identify the specific aspects of religious practice that are associated with positive mental health outcomes. Our study advances the literature by investigating how two unique forms of religious social support are associated with mental health. Purpose We explore whether support received in religious settings from fellow cong…
Coping with an Evil World
This research note advances the religious coping literature by testing whether belief in an evil world conditions the stress-moderating role of scripture reading. Hypotheses are tested with original data from a survey of black, Hispanic, and white American churchgoers from South Texas (2017-2018; n = 1,115). Our findings show that reading scripture for insights into the future attenuates the positive association between major life events and psyc…
Hip Hop Perceptions and Exposure as Predictors of School Outcomes for Black and Latino Adolescents
This study examines the relationship between rap music exposure and perceptions of 351 Black and Latino adolescents and their academic and behavioral outcomes. Findings suggest that adolescents in this study were able to identify both positive and negative aspects of rap music genre. Adolescents who perceived rap music as having socially relevant and empowering qualities had better school outcomes. Exposure to rap videos had a more negative relat…
Bodyweight Perceptions among Texas Women
Despite previous work exploring linkages between religious participation and health, little research has looked at the role of religion in affecting bodyweight perceptions. Using the theoretical model developed by Levin et al. (Sociol Q 36(1):157-173, 1995 ) on the multidimensionality of religious participation, we develop several hypotheses and test them by using data from the 2004 Survey of Texas Adults. We estimate multinomial logistic regress…
Turning Anomie on its Head
Durkheim's underdeveloped notion of fatalism is the keystone for a bridge between two conceptual categories central to Marxian and Durkheimian theory: alienation and anomie. Durkheim does not necessarily disagree with Marx that excessive regulation can be socially damaging but chooses to highlight the effects of under-regulation. A Durkheimian critique of overregulation becomes possible if we turn away from anomie and toward Durkheim's idea of fa…
Islamic Fatalism and the Clash of Civilizations
This paper will address the question of Islamic fatalism. Survey data will be used to assess Samuel P. Huntington's controversial "Clash of Civilizations" thesis and its emphasis on fatalism as an inherent characteristic of Islamic religion. The concept of fatalism is expanded and theorized as a function of both structural and theological dimensions. Findings here suggest that fatalism in the Islamic world remains a largely misunderstood phenomen…
The Fatalistic Imagination and the Continued Salience of Religion in the Modern World
The resource compensation hypothesis predicts that religiosity will serve as a cognitive buffer against structural constraints whereby more religious individuals will exhibit lower levels of fatalism than their less religious counterparts. The resource amplification perspective, on the other hand, predicts that religiosity will foster a sense that otherworldly forces control life's outcomes, leading to higher levels of fatalism. Using a precise m…
Hispanics and Their Perceptions of Family Dynamics
Reference group theory is applied and the notion of "cultural reference groups" introduced as a way to shed light on processes of attitude formation among domestic and international publics. Using four waves of the World Values Survey, the paper explores the way that American and non-American Hispanics in Mexico, Argentina, and Spain interpret several dimensions of the family unit. Findings suggest that Hispanic Americans share more similar views…
When the Center is on Fire
Narrative inversion as a tactical framing device
This paper will draw from recent work in the study of counter-narratives and will apply a sociologically informed perspective to the empirical analysis of discourse. By focusing on the Black Nationalist group The Nation of Islam (NOI) this article will introduce the counter-narrative strategy of “narrative inversion.” Based on discursive analysis of textual materials from early NOI speeches, recordings, and writings, we hope to show how the NOI e…
Faith, Race‐Ethnicity, and Public Policy Preferences
Research has demonstrated that white conservative Protestants are more opposed to abortion than their Catholic counterparts. At the same time, conservative Protestantism has made significant inroads among U.S. Latinos. This study augments existing research on religion and racial‐ethnic variations in abortion attitudes by comparing levels of support for legalized abortion among Catholic and conservative Protestant Latinos. Data are drawn from a na…
Hip Hop Perceptions and Exposure as Predictors of School Outcomes for Black and Latino Adolescents
This study examines the relationship between rap music exposure and perceptions of 351 Black and Latino adolescents and their academic and behavioral outcomes. Findings suggest that adolescents in this study were able to identify both positive and negative aspects of rap music genre. Adolescents who perceived rap music as having socially relevant and empowering qualities had better school outcomes. Exposure to rap videos had a more negative relat…
Blood, War, and Ritual
What social factors predict human sacrifice in premodern societies? After summarising key insights from competing theoretical perspectives that seek to explain the presence of human sacrifice in premodern societies, we empirically assess the explanatory utility of each theory. We draw from Stark's ‘moral communities’ argument and Alexander and Smith's insights regarding cultural autonomy to highlight how the macro-level organisation of premodern …
Is It Really Religion? Comparing the Main and Stress-buffering Effects of Religious and Secular Civic Engagement on Psychological Distress
Using a random sample of adult residents from the state of Texas, we examine how religious participation and secular civic engagement buffer the effects of perceived financial strain and neighborhood disadvantage on psychological distress. Our findings suggest that (a) both organizational religious and secular civic engagement buffer the deleterious effects of perceived financial hardship on respondents’ psychological distress, (b) organizational…
Social Justice and the Urban Obesity Crisis
Social problems reflect the complexity of human behavior and social environments, and our society’s well-intentioned attempts to grapple with these challenges have often fallen short of their inten
True Believers? Religion, Physiology, and Perceived Body Weight in Texas
Sectarian Affiliation and Gender Traditionalism
This paper will add to the expanding scholarship in the sociology of Islam and explore the influence of Sunni-Shi’a affiliation on views of gender traditionalism. Using a subset of the World Values Survey, we contrast views towards women’s roles in society held by Sunni and Shi’a respondents in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Pakistan (n = 10,799). Our findings suggest that views of gender traditionalism are not solely a function of sectarian affiliation…
Religion and Child-Rearing Values in Turkey
Numerous studies have examined the connection between religion and child-rearing values-operationalized in terms of the importance placed on specific traits in children-in the United States and other mainly Christian societies. Much of this work involves the relative priority placed on 'intellectual heteronomy' (obedience to authority) versus 'intellectual autonomy' (thinking for oneself). Here, we augment this work focusing on Turkey, a predomin…
Religion, Cultural Clash, and Muslim American Attitudes About Politically Motivated Violence
Does adherence to Islam predict attitudes about 'suicide bombing' among American Muslims? This study examines the effects of religious and political factors on views of politically motivated violence (PMV). We draw from diverse scholarship, emphasizing arguments that are inspired by Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations perspective, as well as recent work in the sociology of Islam. Using a measure that gauges support for 'suicide bombing' fr…
Secular Volunteerism among Texan Emerging Adults
Prior research suggests that religiosity, especially public religious participation, is related to greater volunteerism. However, less is known about religious transmission across the life course, in particular whether and how religiosity in childhood is linked to later life volunteerism. This study investigates a sample of emerging adults in South Texas (n = 701) with a high percent of Hispanic Americans (53 percent). Specifically, we examine pa…
Bodyweight Perceptions among Texas Women
Despite previous work exploring linkages between religious participation and health, little research has looked at the role of religion in affecting bodyweight perceptions. Using the theoretical model developed by Levin et al. (Sociol Q 36(1):157-173, 1995 ) on the multidimensionality of religious participation, we develop several hypotheses and test them by using data from the 2004 Survey of Texas Adults. We estimate multinomial logistic regress…
Religion and Gender Ideologies among Working-Age U.S. Latinas/os
Numerous studies have documented religious variations in gender ideology in the United States. Despite growth, diversification, and religious ferment among Latinas/os, few have investigated this topic within the Latina/o population. Drawing on insights from gender theory and prior empirical research, we develop several hypotheses regarding the links between religious affiliation, belief, and practice and three distinct domains of traditionalist g…
Contextualizing Events in Imagined Communities
The ongoing denigration of Arabs in the media, the Western democratic political shifts away from Muslim religious freedom, and increasing anxiety about Muslim radicalization prompt the question: How do Arabs respond to global events when the Muslim and Western worlds are perceived to clash? Our study draws on the theory of imagined communities to examine the extent to which exogenous world events influence attitudes towards out-group members in t…
Prayer, Meditation, and Anxiety
Durkheim argued that religion's emphasis on the supernatural combined with its unique ability to foster strong collective bonds lent it power to confer distinctive social benefits. Subsequent research has confirmed these propositions with respect to religion and mental health. At the same time, meditation has been linked to mental health benefits in intervention-based studies. Our investigation offers a unique test of two comparable inhibitors of…
Islam and Support for Gender Inequality among Women in Turkey
Turkey has been characterized as a nation that exhibits an amalgam of Eastern and Western cultural values. For a lengthy period of time, Turkey had prohibited Muslim women’s wearing of the veil in many public venues. Yet, the vast majority of this nation’s citizens are highly devout Muslims. Our study uses these paradoxes as a springboard for investigating early twenty-first century religious influences on Turkish Muslim women’s attitudes toward …
Islamic Strangers
Using nationally representative survey data from the 2011 Pew Muslim American Survey, this study investigates how the combined effects of religiosity, personal networks, and attitudes toward American society shape the subjective identities of Muslims residing in the United States. We draw on social identity theory, Simmel’s notion of the “stranger,” and past research on subjective identity among faith groups to examine U.S. Muslim identity prefer…
Coping with an Evil World
This research note advances the religious coping literature by testing whether belief in an evil world conditions the stress-moderating role of scripture reading. Hypotheses are tested with original data from a survey of black, Hispanic, and white American churchgoers from South Texas (2017-2018; n = 1,115). Our findings show that reading scripture for insights into the future attenuates the positive association between major life events and psyc…
Is it the Sermon or the Choir? Pastoral Support, Congregant Support, and Worshiper Mental Health
Background Although religious involvement tends to be associated with improved mental health, additional work is needed to identify the specific aspects of religious practice that are associated with positive mental health outcomes. Our study advances the literature by investigating how two unique forms of religious social support are associated with mental health. Purpose We explore whether support received in religious settings from fellow cong…
“Electronic Church” 2.0
Over the past four decades, studies have consistently shown that regular attendance at religious services is associated with better mental and physical health. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many congregations paused in-person religious services and moved their worship rituals online. The ways that churches have responded to the threat of infectious disease require new conceptualizations and operationalizations of religious attendance and…
Psychology (21 obras) · Sociology (20 obras) · Political science (18 obras) · Social Psychology (18 obras) · Law (14 obras) · Religion and Society Interactions (14 obras) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (11 obras) · Gender Studies (8 obras) · Medicine (7 obras) · Politics (7 obras)