F Carson Mencken
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 155753 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | F Carson Mencken |
| NOMBRES | F Carson |
| APELLIDO | Mencken |
| FIRMA | MENCKEN F C |
| AFILIACIONES | Baylor University |
| ORCID | 0009-0000-4166-344X |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 34 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 350 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 34 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1997 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 10 |
Fox news cable consumption and trust in conservative political iconographies
Past research indicates that greater consumption of FNC leads to negative views on liberal political iconographies (e.g., race, immigration, science), but little work has been published on the relationship between FNC consumption and support for conservative political iconographies. We use framing theory to inform an empirical model in which we examine the relationships between FNC frequency of consumption and trust in white people, local police,…
The sacred gun
Gun culture is properly measured by a population's emotional and symbolic attachment to guns and not by rates of gun ownership. Using data from the Baylor Religion Survey (wave 6), we find that nearly all gun owners feel that guns provide them with a physical sense of security (Gun Security), but a distinct and crucial sub-set of owners express an additional and strong attachment to their weapons (Gun Sanctity). Gun Sanctity measures the extent t…
Religiosity and Fear of Crime Victimization
In this study, we developed three hypotheses about the role of religiosity in fear of crime victimization. Noting that religiosity and fear of victimization vary significantly by gender, we also examined to what extent religiosity affects fear of victimization by gender. We utilized Wave 2 of the Chapman University fear study. We developed three measures of religiosity: salience, service attendance, and biblical literalism. We used factor analysi…
Bank on it
Recent research on the restructuring of the financial industry from local banks to interstate conglomerates has raised questions about the impact on nonmetropolitan economies. In this paper, we develop two competing hypotheses and scrutinize the impact of local bank concentration (percent banks that are locally headquartered) on four measures of economic growth from 1980 to 2010 in metropolitan, micropolitan, and non-core Commuting Zones (CZs). W…
Fear of Crime on Community Engagement
In this article, we propose that fear of crime has nonadditive and curvilinear effects on community engagement, and that this relationship varies by gender. We test our propositions utilizing the 2015 Chapman Survey of American Fears, Wave 2. We find that fear of crime has a linear positive relationship with community engagement for men. For women, we find a curvilinear relationship. At low and average levels of fear, there is a positive relation…
Self-employment and Civic Inclination
We test whether the self-employed have higher levels of civic inclination (trust, political activism, community closeness, community participation) compared to workers from the private sector. We examine the civic inclinations of the self-employed with two national cross-sectional data sets. We use a variety of discrete and continuous regression models. We find that the self-employed have higher levels of political activism, feel closer to neighb…
Oil and gas development and small business lending in U.S. nonmetropolitan counties
How does the presence or absence of small business loans affect the emergence and development of rural businesses in traditionally underserved areas? Further, how has capital-intensive oil and gas development contributed to these lending patterns? In our ongoing work, we have established that locally oriented businesses such as small manufacturing establishments and retail outlets are associated with many beneficial local outcomes and promote non…
Gun Culture in Action
Exploring the symbolic meaning of guns in the United States may be one the best ways to approach theoretical questions concerning the effect of “culture in action” because it focuses on a single object—the gun—which brims with symbolic power far beyond its physical utility. Using data from the Baylor Religion Surveys (Wave 4), we investigate the extent to which guns empower gun owners morally and emotionally. We also investigate the diversity of …
Community Banks and Loans for Nonmetropolitan Businesses
Access to financial capital is vital for the sustainability of the local business sector in nonmetropolitan communities. In this article we develop two hypotheses and examine the impact of financial sector restructuring on the odds of using a bank loan to finance a new business or expand an existing business. Focusing on nonmetropolitan American businesses, we connect restricted tabulations of the 2007 Survey of Business Owners to data on the com…
Judgmental God image, social embeddedness, and social trust among the highly religious in the United States
In this article we explore two propositions concerning the manner in which judgmental God image affects social trust among the highly religious in the United States. One proposition argues that having a judgmental God image and being highly embedded in a community of co-religionists can create low levels of social trust through social bonding and the formation of particularized trust. The other proposition maintains that embeddedness in a moral c…
A Bounded Affinity Theory of Religion and the Paranormal
We outline a theory of bounded affinity between religious experiences and beliefs and paranormalism, which emphasizes that religious and paranormal experiences and beliefs share inherent physiological, psychological, and ontological similarities. Despite these parallels, organized religious groups typically delineate a narrow subset of experiences and explanatory frames as acceptable and True, banishing others as either false or demonic. Accordin…
Restructuring of the Financial Industry
Restructuring in the financial services industry has altered the relationship between small business owners and capital. In the past small businesses have relied on relational, or soft data, lending from locally owned banks for capital. The proliferation of absentee-owned local branch networks brought standardized practices, thus eliminating the autonomy of local loan officers to utilize soft data in loan decisions. In this article we examine the…
College Graduates, Local Retailers, and Community Belonging in the United States
How do communities retain their highly educated residents? Do local retailers play a role? This study addresses these questions using confidential U.S. census data on locally-oriented retail employment and county-level public-use files. Hierarchical linear modeling is employed to test hypotheses derived from prior research on civic community and migration. The results confirm that state-level local retail employment buffers the extent to which co…
Risk Aversion, Shortage Economy, and Gender Differences in Religious Activities in China
The vast majority of studies in the sociology of religion show that women are more religious than men. We test a rather controversial conclusion that these differences stem from gender differences in risk aversion. Utilizing Yang's shortage economy perspective on religion in China, we argue that risk is inherent in gray market religious activities. From the risk aversion perspective, we hypothesize that women should participate in gray market les…
Image of God and Community Volunteering among Religious Adherents in the United States
Individual theological beliefs provide important motivations for religious people to volunteer in their communities. Compassion and loving one's neighbor are both ideas that can motivate individuals to volunteer their time and talents. Religious believers who have conservative theological beliefs may see volunteering for their communities as a minor factor in their religious calling. Recent research on the role of social embeddedness within relig…
From Obama to Osama
Although Muslims in the United States are highly assimilated into American society, they represent less than 1 percent of the total population. Therefore, most of the information Americans receive about this group comes from secondary sources. Two theoretical perspectives of opinion formation—image of God and low information rationality—shed light on the subject of trust in this marginalized group. For highly religious Americans, nearly two-third…
Fatalistic Voluntarism and Life Happiness in Post-Socialist China
Fatalism has been recognized by sociologists as a key concept in sociology. Recent debates on fatalism revolve around the way theological fatalism influences the individual and society. Unfortunately, little has been said about the topic in the communist and post-communist world. Using recent data from a national survey of residents in People's Republic of China (P.R. China), this article examines the relationship between fatalistic voluntarism a…
A U.S. Holy War? The Effects of Religion on Iraq War Policy Attitudes
Objective. Throughout the course of the Iraq War, the Bush Administration has consistently framed its war policy in religious language. Therefore, we investigate the extent to which public religiosity predicts neoconservative foreign policy attitudes. Method. We use the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey to estimate OLS models predicting the effects of religious measures on support for a neoconservative Middle East foreign policy. Findings. We find that…
In God We Trust
In this analysis, the authors use Greeley's 'religion as poetry' model to frame an analysis of images of God and trust among the highly religious. Using the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey, the authors regress four ordinal measures of social trust on two images of God measures and a bank of religion and demographic controls. The authors find that having a loving image of God creates greater levels of trust in all four measures among the highly religi…
Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer
In this paper we examine the relationship between conventional Christian and paranormal beliefs. Conventional Christian beliefs are those such as belief in Heaven, Hell, and the existence of God. Paranormal beliefs include belief in UFOs, astrology, haunting, communication with the dead, and Bigfoot. We test three hypotheses (deviance) (marginalization, small step, and compatibility) about the relationship between these two belief types with fact…
American Piety 2005
The Baylor Religion Survey (BRS) is a national population survey of religious characteristics, orientations, and attitudes modeled after the General Social Survey. This article provides an overview of the content of the 2005 BRS along with a detailed description of our methods of data collection and some descriptive characteristics from our sample of 1,721 adults in the United States. A third of the survey is dedicated solely to religion items fo…
The Professionalization of Faculty at Religious Colleges and Universities
As faculty become defined more by the professional norms of their discipline, the potential for conflict with the faith-based norms of religious colleges and universities should increase. Survey responses from over 1,900 faculty at six religious colleges and universities show that most faculty members support including religious criteria in hiring, contrary to professional, disciplinary norms, but most faculty reject religious constraints on acad…
Where Have All the Communes Gone? Religion's Effect on the Survival of Communes
Although previous research has found religion to have a significant effect on commune survival, these conclusions were typically based on bivariate analyses. Drawing on data collected by the Fellowship for Intentional Community, we present a multivariate analysis of communal survival using a comparatively large sample (N = 454) of modern American communes. Controlling for key factors suggested by the literature, we find that religion does not hav…
Federal Public Investment Spending and Economic Development in Appalachiai
This analysis examines the relationship between federal public investment spending and economic development in the special case of Appalachia. We propose that the effects of federal public investment spending on economic development operate indirectly through private capital accumulation. We use a spatial lag regression model to test our ideas for the 1980s and the 1990s. In the first step, we show that average federal public investment spending …
Federal Defense Spending and Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Disparities in Economic Growth in the Southeast
Objective. This study examines how defense spending in the 1980s and early 1990s affected economic growth in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties in the southeast. Methods. Using county‐level Census and other government data, the study employs a spatial lag regression model to predict how defense spending interacts with manufacturing growth to affect county economic growth during the business cycles of the 1980s and early 1990s, while contro…
American Piety 2005
The Baylor Religion Survey (BRS) is a national population survey of religious characteristics, orientations, and attitudes modeled after the General Social Survey. This article provides an overview of the content of the 2005 BRS along with a detailed description of our methods of data collection and some descriptive characteristics from our sample of 1,721 adults in the United States. A third of the survey is dedicated solely to religion items fo…
Gun Culture in Action
Exploring the symbolic meaning of guns in the United States may be one the best ways to approach theoretical questions concerning the effect of “culture in action” because it focuses on a single object—the gun—which brims with symbolic power far beyond its physical utility. Using data from the Baylor Religion Surveys (Wave 4), we investigate the extent to which guns empower gun owners morally and emotionally. We also investigate the diversity of …
A U.S. Holy War? The Effects of Religion on Iraq War Policy Attitudes
Objective. Throughout the course of the Iraq War, the Bush Administration has consistently framed its war policy in religious language. Therefore, we investigate the extent to which public religiosity predicts neoconservative foreign policy attitudes. Method. We use the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey to estimate OLS models predicting the effects of religious measures on support for a neoconservative Middle East foreign policy. Findings. We find that…
Social Disorganization Theory and the Contextual Nature of Crime in Nonmetropolitan Counties
This research explores violent and property crime rates in nonmetropolitan counties. It is argued that crime rates are lower in these counties because of higher levels of social integration. We test the hypothesis that predictors of crime from social disorganization theory exert different effects on violent and property crimes at different levels of population change in nonmetropolitan counties. We use a spatial lag regression model to predict th…
In God We Trust
In this analysis, the authors use Greeley's 'religion as poetry' model to frame an analysis of images of God and trust among the highly religious. Using the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey, the authors regress four ordinal measures of social trust on two images of God measures and a bank of religion and demographic controls. The authors find that having a loving image of God creates greater levels of trust in all four measures among the highly religi…
Job Search and Sex Segregation
Image of God and Community Volunteering among Religious Adherents in the United States
Individual theological beliefs provide important motivations for religious people to volunteer in their communities. Compassion and loving one's neighbor are both ideas that can motivate individuals to volunteer their time and talents. Religious believers who have conservative theological beliefs may see volunteering for their communities as a minor factor in their religious calling. Recent research on the role of social embeddedness within relig…
A Bounded Affinity Theory of Religion and the Paranormal
We outline a theory of bounded affinity between religious experiences and beliefs and paranormalism, which emphasizes that religious and paranormal experiences and beliefs share inherent physiological, psychological, and ontological similarities. Despite these parallels, organized religious groups typically delineate a narrow subset of experiences and explanatory frames as acceptable and True, banishing others as either false or demonic. Accordin…
Restructuring of the Financial Industry
Restructuring in the financial services industry has altered the relationship between small business owners and capital. In the past small businesses have relied on relational, or soft data, lending from locally owned banks for capital. The proliferation of absentee-owned local branch networks brought standardized practices, thus eliminating the autonomy of local loan officers to utilize soft data in loan decisions. In this article we examine the…
From Obama to Osama
Although Muslims in the United States are highly assimilated into American society, they represent less than 1 percent of the total population. Therefore, most of the information Americans receive about this group comes from secondary sources. Two theoretical perspectives of opinion formation—image of God and low information rationality—shed light on the subject of trust in this marginalized group. For highly religious Americans, nearly two-third…
Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer
In this paper we examine the relationship between conventional Christian and paranormal beliefs. Conventional Christian beliefs are those such as belief in Heaven, Hell, and the existence of God. Paranormal beliefs include belief in UFOs, astrology, haunting, communication with the dead, and Bigfoot. We test three hypotheses (deviance) (marginalization, small step, and compatibility) about the relationship between these two belief types with fact…
Employer Recruiting and the Gender Composition of Jobs
In this paper we examine employer recruiting in the external labor market as an intervening mechanism in the process of job gender segregation. We use data from the Metropolitan Employer-Worker Survey to examine the effects of informal and formal recruiting techniques on the gender composition of jobs, and how the characteristics of jobs, organizations, occupations and industries affect the use of formal and informal recruiting. Jobs more frequen…
Fatalistic Voluntarism and Life Happiness in Post-Socialist China
Fatalism has been recognized by sociologists as a key concept in sociology. Recent debates on fatalism revolve around the way theological fatalism influences the individual and society. Unfortunately, little has been said about the topic in the communist and post-communist world. Using recent data from a national survey of residents in People's Republic of China (P.R. China), this article examines the relationship between fatalistic voluntarism a…
A Study of the Region
This paper investigates regional differences in socioeconomic well-being in Appalachia at the end of the 1980s. Recent studies show that south Appalachian counties had higher levels of well-being at this time. I propose these regional differences in Appalachia were the result of regional differences among nonmetro counties. Using a model informed by human ecology literature, I argue that southern nonmetro counties had greater sustenance diversity…
"In Search of the "Right Stuff
This paper explores a topic of much speculation but relatively little empirical investigation: How those in charge of recruiting and hiring new employees assess the advantages and disadvantages of various recruiting techniques. We also examine how organizational characteristics shape hiring managers'perceptions of the primary advantages and disadvantages of recruiting techniques. A sample of hiring managers in a major metropolitan labor market id…
Where Have All the Communes Gone? Religion's Effect on the Survival of Communes
Although previous research has found religion to have a significant effect on commune survival, these conclusions were typically based on bivariate analyses. Drawing on data collected by the Fellowship for Intentional Community, we present a multivariate analysis of communal survival using a comparatively large sample (N = 454) of modern American communes. Controlling for key factors suggested by the literature, we find that religion does not hav…
Trends and future directions in the academic job market for Ph.D.’s in sociology
Federal Spending and Economic Growth in Appalachian Counties
In this paper I use a model informed by key theories of regional processes, and I test three related hypotheses concerning the effects of different types of federal spending (public investment, defense, salaries/wages) on economic growth in the 399 Appalachian counties during recent business cycles. The analysis incorporates a maximum likelihood estimate spatial lag regression model and shows that federal public investment spending and defense sp…
Socioeconomic Performance in Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas during the 1980s
The socioeconomic gap between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas increased during the 1980s. We test three competing explanations for this trend during the 1980s: overdependence on manufacturing, especially in nonmetro labor markets, the emergence of producer services as a catalyst of socioeconomic growth, and federal spending. Using a model that is informed by a variety of perspectives in sociology and economic geography, and commuter zones …
Community Banks and Loans for Nonmetropolitan Businesses
Access to financial capital is vital for the sustainability of the local business sector in nonmetropolitan communities. In this article we develop two hypotheses and examine the impact of financial sector restructuring on the odds of using a bank loan to finance a new business or expand an existing business. Focusing on nonmetropolitan American businesses, we connect restricted tabulations of the 2007 Survey of Business Owners to data on the com…
Judgmental God image, social embeddedness, and social trust among the highly religious in the United States
In this article we explore two propositions concerning the manner in which judgmental God image affects social trust among the highly religious in the United States. One proposition argues that having a judgmental God image and being highly embedded in a community of co-religionists can create low levels of social trust through social bonding and the formation of particularized trust. The other proposition maintains that embeddedness in a moral c…
College Graduates, Local Retailers, and Community Belonging in the United States
How do communities retain their highly educated residents? Do local retailers play a role? This study addresses these questions using confidential U.S. census data on locally-oriented retail employment and county-level public-use files. Hierarchical linear modeling is employed to test hypotheses derived from prior research on civic community and migration. The results confirm that state-level local retail employment buffers the extent to which co…
The sacred gun
Gun culture is properly measured by a population's emotional and symbolic attachment to guns and not by rates of gun ownership. Using data from the Baylor Religion Survey (wave 6), we find that nearly all gun owners feel that guns provide them with a physical sense of security (Gun Security), but a distinct and crucial sub-set of owners express an additional and strong attachment to their weapons (Gun Sanctity). Gun Sanctity measures the extent t…
Self-employment and Civic Inclination
We test whether the self-employed have higher levels of civic inclination (trust, political activism, community closeness, community participation) compared to workers from the private sector. We examine the civic inclinations of the self-employed with two national cross-sectional data sets. We use a variety of discrete and continuous regression models. We find that the self-employed have higher levels of political activism, feel closer to neighb…
Risk Aversion, Shortage Economy, and Gender Differences in Religious Activities in China
The vast majority of studies in the sociology of religion show that women are more religious than men. We test a rather controversial conclusion that these differences stem from gender differences in risk aversion. Utilizing Yang's shortage economy perspective on religion in China, we argue that risk is inherent in gray market religious activities. From the risk aversion perspective, we hypothesize that women should participate in gray market les…
A Study of the Region
This paper investigates regional differences in socioeconomic well-being in Appalachia at the end of the 1980s. Recent studies show that south Appalachian counties had higher levels of well-being at this time. I propose these regional differences in Appalachia were the result of regional differences among nonmetro counties. Using a model informed by human ecology literature, I argue that southern nonmetro counties had greater sustenance diversity…
Trends and future directions in the academic job market for Ph.D.’s in sociology
"In Search of the "Right Stuff
This paper explores a topic of much speculation but relatively little empirical investigation: How those in charge of recruiting and hiring new employees assess the advantages and disadvantages of various recruiting techniques. We also examine how organizational characteristics shape hiring managers'perceptions of the primary advantages and disadvantages of recruiting techniques. A sample of hiring managers in a major metropolitan labor market id…
Socioeconomic Performance in Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Areas during the 1980s
The socioeconomic gap between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas increased during the 1980s. We test three competing explanations for this trend during the 1980s: overdependence on manufacturing, especially in nonmetro labor markets, the emergence of producer services as a catalyst of socioeconomic growth, and federal spending. Using a model that is informed by a variety of perspectives in sociology and economic geography, and commuter zones …
Employer Recruiting and the Gender Composition of Jobs
In this paper we examine employer recruiting in the external labor market as an intervening mechanism in the process of job gender segregation. We use data from the Metropolitan Employer-Worker Survey to examine the effects of informal and formal recruiting techniques on the gender composition of jobs, and how the characteristics of jobs, organizations, occupations and industries affect the use of formal and informal recruiting. Jobs more frequen…
Job Search and Sex Segregation
Right-to-Work Laws and Local Economic Growth
Right-to-work legislation continues to be debated at both the national and state levels. This paper seeks to inform the debate on the effectiveness of RTW laws as an economic development strategy. Using the 399 counties of Appalachia as a case study, and a model informed by the human ecology and the new urban sociology, this paper compares recent earnings change during the last three business cycles in counties from right-to-work and non right-to…
Federal Spending and Economic Growth in Appalachian Counties
In this paper I use a model informed by key theories of regional processes, and I test three related hypotheses concerning the effects of different types of federal spending (public investment, defense, salaries/wages) on economic growth in the 399 Appalachian counties during recent business cycles. The analysis incorporates a maximum likelihood estimate spatial lag regression model and shows that federal public investment spending and defense sp…
Social Disorganization Theory and the Contextual Nature of Crime in Nonmetropolitan Counties
This research explores violent and property crime rates in nonmetropolitan counties. It is argued that crime rates are lower in these counties because of higher levels of social integration. We test the hypothesis that predictors of crime from social disorganization theory exert different effects on violent and property crimes at different levels of population change in nonmetropolitan counties. We use a spatial lag regression model to predict th…
Federal Defense Spending and Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Disparities in Economic Growth in the Southeast
Objective. This study examines how defense spending in the 1980s and early 1990s affected economic growth in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties in the southeast. Methods. Using county‐level Census and other government data, the study employs a spatial lag regression model to predict how defense spending interacts with manufacturing growth to affect county economic growth during the business cycles of the 1980s and early 1990s, while contro…
Federal Public Investment Spending and Economic Development in Appalachiai
This analysis examines the relationship between federal public investment spending and economic development in the special case of Appalachia. We propose that the effects of federal public investment spending on economic development operate indirectly through private capital accumulation. We use a spatial lag regression model to test our ideas for the 1980s and the 1990s. In the first step, we show that average federal public investment spending …
Where Have All the Communes Gone? Religion's Effect on the Survival of Communes
Although previous research has found religion to have a significant effect on commune survival, these conclusions were typically based on bivariate analyses. Drawing on data collected by the Fellowship for Intentional Community, we present a multivariate analysis of communal survival using a comparatively large sample (N = 454) of modern American communes. Controlling for key factors suggested by the literature, we find that religion does not hav…
American Piety 2005
The Baylor Religion Survey (BRS) is a national population survey of religious characteristics, orientations, and attitudes modeled after the General Social Survey. This article provides an overview of the content of the 2005 BRS along with a detailed description of our methods of data collection and some descriptive characteristics from our sample of 1,721 adults in the United States. A third of the survey is dedicated solely to religion items fo…
The Professionalization of Faculty at Religious Colleges and Universities
As faculty become defined more by the professional norms of their discipline, the potential for conflict with the faith-based norms of religious colleges and universities should increase. Survey responses from over 1,900 faculty at six religious colleges and universities show that most faculty members support including religious criteria in hiring, contrary to professional, disciplinary norms, but most faculty reject religious constraints on acad…
A U.S. Holy War? The Effects of Religion on Iraq War Policy Attitudes
Objective. Throughout the course of the Iraq War, the Bush Administration has consistently framed its war policy in religious language. Therefore, we investigate the extent to which public religiosity predicts neoconservative foreign policy attitudes. Method. We use the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey to estimate OLS models predicting the effects of religious measures on support for a neoconservative Middle East foreign policy. Findings. We find that…
In God We Trust
In this analysis, the authors use Greeley's 'religion as poetry' model to frame an analysis of images of God and trust among the highly religious. Using the 2005 Baylor Religion Survey, the authors regress four ordinal measures of social trust on two images of God measures and a bank of religion and demographic controls. The authors find that having a loving image of God creates greater levels of trust in all four measures among the highly religi…
Round Trip to Hell in a Flying Saucer
In this paper we examine the relationship between conventional Christian and paranormal beliefs. Conventional Christian beliefs are those such as belief in Heaven, Hell, and the existence of God. Paranormal beliefs include belief in UFOs, astrology, haunting, communication with the dead, and Bigfoot. We test three hypotheses (deviance) (marginalization, small step, and compatibility) about the relationship between these two belief types with fact…
Fatalistic Voluntarism and Life Happiness in Post-Socialist China
Fatalism has been recognized by sociologists as a key concept in sociology. Recent debates on fatalism revolve around the way theological fatalism influences the individual and society. Unfortunately, little has been said about the topic in the communist and post-communist world. Using recent data from a national survey of residents in People's Republic of China (P.R. China), this article examines the relationship between fatalistic voluntarism a…
From Obama to Osama
Although Muslims in the United States are highly assimilated into American society, they represent less than 1 percent of the total population. Therefore, most of the information Americans receive about this group comes from secondary sources. Two theoretical perspectives of opinion formation—image of God and low information rationality—shed light on the subject of trust in this marginalized group. For highly religious Americans, nearly two-third…
Risk Aversion, Shortage Economy, and Gender Differences in Religious Activities in China
The vast majority of studies in the sociology of religion show that women are more religious than men. We test a rather controversial conclusion that these differences stem from gender differences in risk aversion. Utilizing Yang's shortage economy perspective on religion in China, we argue that risk is inherent in gray market religious activities. From the risk aversion perspective, we hypothesize that women should participate in gray market les…
Image of God and Community Volunteering among Religious Adherents in the United States
Individual theological beliefs provide important motivations for religious people to volunteer in their communities. Compassion and loving one's neighbor are both ideas that can motivate individuals to volunteer their time and talents. Religious believers who have conservative theological beliefs may see volunteering for their communities as a minor factor in their religious calling. Recent research on the role of social embeddedness within relig…
Restructuring of the Financial Industry
Restructuring in the financial services industry has altered the relationship between small business owners and capital. In the past small businesses have relied on relational, or soft data, lending from locally owned banks for capital. The proliferation of absentee-owned local branch networks brought standardized practices, thus eliminating the autonomy of local loan officers to utilize soft data in loan decisions. In this article we examine the…
College Graduates, Local Retailers, and Community Belonging in the United States
How do communities retain their highly educated residents? Do local retailers play a role? This study addresses these questions using confidential U.S. census data on locally-oriented retail employment and county-level public-use files. Hierarchical linear modeling is employed to test hypotheses derived from prior research on civic community and migration. The results confirm that state-level local retail employment buffers the extent to which co…
Judgmental God image, social embeddedness, and social trust among the highly religious in the United States
In this article we explore two propositions concerning the manner in which judgmental God image affects social trust among the highly religious in the United States. One proposition argues that having a judgmental God image and being highly embedded in a community of co-religionists can create low levels of social trust through social bonding and the formation of particularized trust. The other proposition maintains that embeddedness in a moral c…
A Bounded Affinity Theory of Religion and the Paranormal
We outline a theory of bounded affinity between religious experiences and beliefs and paranormalism, which emphasizes that religious and paranormal experiences and beliefs share inherent physiological, psychological, and ontological similarities. Despite these parallels, organized religious groups typically delineate a narrow subset of experiences and explanatory frames as acceptable and True, banishing others as either false or demonic. Accordin…
Sociology (22 obras) · Political science (17 obras) · Economics (15 obras) · Psychology (15 obras) · Demographic economics (11 obras) · Geography (11 obras) · Law (11 obras) · Social Psychology (11 obras) · Economic growth (9 obras) · Philosophy (9 obras)