Katie E Corcoran
Biographic Data
| ID | 190242 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Katie E Corcoran |
| GIVEN NAMES | Katie E |
| FAMILY NAME | Corcoran |
| SIGNATURE | CORCORAN K E |
| AFFILIATIONS | West Virginia University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7948-5877 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 59 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 153 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 59 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Nones with religious identities: Characteristics of those who select both religious and nonreligious identities
Survey research tends to classify individuals as either having a religious identity or having a nonreligious identity/no religious identity. This binary is a function of religious identity questions typically only allowing for a single response. In this study we used unique data from the US Multi-Faith Identities Survey of 2023 which allowed individuals to select as many religious or nonreligious identities that apply to them. We found that a mea…
Geographic constraints on the careers of graduate students in science: Race, gender and family of origin
While research has examined how the career decisions and outcomes of scientists are influenced by their partners and children, less research has examined the role of their family of origin. Using data from an original survey fielded on a sample of U.S. graduate students in five natural and social science disciplines, we consider how a students’ closeness to and concerns about caring for their family of origin might influence their educational and…
Attitudes Towards Members of Religious Groups: Considering the Role of a Scientific Worldview
Past research has identified several factors, such as social ties, that can influence an individual's attitudes towards a particular religious group. This study extends this literature to consider the role of a scientific worldview in shaping attitudes towards different religious groups. In addition to expanding the literature on religious tolerance, this study advances the social scientific study of religion and science in two ways. First, unlik…
Pluralism in the Mind: Patterns and Predictors of Identifying With Multiple World Religions
Classic theories of religious pluralism theorized that religions compete for plausibility and acceptance based on the assumption that individuals can only have one religious identity or none. Religious identification in the United States has long been conceptualized as exclusive in nature, and surveys have in turn tended to only allow an individual to identify with a single religion. Recent research has questioned these assumptions, and there are…
Sociology Graduate Students’ Career Preferences and Expectations: An Assessment and Call for Change
Research Note: Characteristics of US Adults Who Attend Multiple Congregations: Findings from a Nationally Representative Survey
While most prior research assumes that if someone attends religious services, they only attend at one place of worship, a handful of studies suggest that some individuals do regularly attend multiple congregations. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: What percentage of U.S. adults who attend religious services attend multiple congregations? What are the socio-demographic and religious characteristics of those who attend multiple c…
Questions of Truth vs. Questions of Trust: Nuancing the Influences of Religiosity, Political Conservatism, and Christian Nationalism on Attitudes Towards Science
Religiosity and political conservatism are often hypothesized to be negatively associated with attitudes towards science. Yet, past research has often failed to distinguish between trust in science versus the acceptance of science as a source of truth. Using data generated from a probability survey of U.S. adults, we identify four latent factors within a battery of items asking about individuals’ views on science. Two of these represent science’s…
Contemporary Views and Uses of Astrology in the United States: A Descriptive, Mixed-Methods Analysis
Astrology is a multi-million-dollar industry. Its ubiquity in contemporary social life suggests that astrology may be an important component of Americans’ identity and lived experience. Despite this popularity, scholarly attention to the uses and views of astrology is limited and has largely focused on its relationship with religion and religiosity. Further, little is known about who uses astrology in the United States, how, and why. In this arti…
Individuals’ Perceptions of the Most Important People Who Raised Them: Differences by Sexual Identity
Perceptions of Group Boundaries between Amish and Non-Amish during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Social environments shape group identity. Environmental changes force adaptation in varying ways. Disruptions created by the COVID-19 pandemic provide an opportunity to empirically study how group identities form, transform, and establish and reinforce collective boundaries. All social groups discern between “us,” referencing in-group members from “them,” referring to outsiders. High-tension religious communities tend to reinforce pre-defined gro…
Easy targets: Religious vulnerability to predatory crime
Most prior research on religion and crime focuses on predictors of criminal behavior and neglects victimization. Studies of religion and victimization generally examine religion-based hate crimes. We present a theory of religion-based victimization drawing on routine activities theory, emphasizing how particular religious beliefs and practices may increase one's vulnerability to predatory crime victimization due to opportunity, not hate. We draw …
Holes in Sacred Umbrellas: Non-Religious Friendship Networks and Adopting an Atheistic Worldview
Berger (1967) argued that the plausibility of a religious worldview depends on the strength of the plausibility structure supporting it. We hypothesize that a weaker religious plausibility structure (or, alternatively, a stronger non-religious plausibility structure) will increase the odds of adopting an atheistic worldview. We use waves 2 and 4 of the National Study of Youth and Religion to test the relationship between non-religious and religio…
Social Locations of Secularization and Worldview (Dis)Enchantment: Education, Income, and Belief in Religious and Paranormal Phenomena
Forces of secularization are theorized to disenchant an individual's worldview-i.e., erode an individual's belief in nonnatural beings, forces, or abilities. Tests of this proposition, though, have often failed to measure the variety of forms of worldview enchantment found among individuals. Drawing on the broader secularization literature, we theorize correlates of (dis)enchantment and test these predictions using a nationally representative sur…
Science on the mind: Examining question ordering effects when asking about science on large-scale surveys
Previous research has examined people's attitudes toward science and scientists, highlighting how religious identities, beliefs, or behavior shapes these attitudes. However, survey design choices have been previously shown to influence individuals' attitudes toward religion and science. We investigated the extent to which question ordering (i.e. presenting questions about science before questions about religion or the paranormal) in a large-scale…
A Clash of Powers: Church and State
Sociologists define power as one party's capacity to influence another's action. Thus, power is a relational property of interpersonal interaction. However, its dynamics embed within institutions such as the church and the state. This paper explores power dynamics using a case study of the conflict between an Old Order Amish church and the civil law of Ohio. The church excommunicated a member for violating community rules. The member countered by…
Strange Affinities in the Search for Personalized Health: New Age Practices and Genetic Testing
A prominent focus of New Age beliefs and practices has always been health and healing-including the use of holistic healing, power crystals, homeopathy, and complementary and alternative medicine. Given its association with modern science and medicine, genetic testing would seem to run counter to New Age alternative medical practices. On the other hand, the use of at-home genetic health tests and the use of such New Age alternative medical practi…
Religious Ritual Compliance with Covid-19 Mandates in Plain Communities: A Case Study of Amish Obituaries and Funeral Practices
Measures to limit COVID-19's spread were vital at the pandemic's onset. While some churches complied with public health mandates, others resisted them. Some religious ceremonies depend on third parties independent of the church. Funerals may require mortuary services overseen by funeral directors. Religious groups that may otherwise resist public health directives may comply when they depend on a third party. Extending street-level bureaucracy th…
Pathways to Immunity: Patterns of Excess Death Across the United States and Within Closed Religious Communities
Predictors of Adopting an Atheistic Worldview: An Analysis of Survey Data Containing a Retrospective Measure of Belief in God
Many studies have used retrospective survey measures to examine changes in individuals’ religious affiliation, but studies examining changes to individuals’ core religious beliefs are comparatively rare. This is likely because surveys rarely contain measures of both current and past beliefs. Using data from a probability sample of U.S. adults that includes a measure of individuals’ current and age 16 belief in God, the authors examine the predict…
Witches, Magic, and Crystals: Assessing Differences in Paranormal Beliefs and Paranormal Engagement Across Sexual Identity Groups Using National Survey Data
Covid‐19 pandemic's impact on the public's confidence in scientific community: The role of personal contact
Objective This study considers how having personally tested positive for COVID‐19 or knowing someone who has tested positive for COVID‐19 is associated with an individual's reported change in confidence in the scientific community due to the pandemic. Methods Using data generated from a probability sample of U.S. adults, we estimate regression models predicting individuals’ reported change in confidence in the scientific community due to the pand…
Paranormal Beliefs, Vaccine Confidence, and Covid-19 Vaccine Uptake
Conservative religious ideologies have been linked to vaccine hesitancy. Yet, little is known about how paranormal beliefs relate to vaccine confidence and uptake. We hypothesize that paranormal beliefs will be negatively related to both confidence and uptake due to their association with lower levels of trust in science and a greater acceptance of conspiratorial beliefs. We test this hypothesis using a new nationally representative sample of U.S…
Echo Chambers in a Closed Community: Vaccine Uptake and Perceived Effectiveness among the Amish and Old Order Mennonites
Recent scholarship finds linkages between religiosity and vaccination practices but neglects the role of religious, social structural influences. The relationship between religious beliefs and immunization in the context of closed religious communities remains understudied. We use a survey of Amish and Old Order Mennonite parents to explore relationships between religious belief, group closure, perceived vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine uptake.…
Rituals of Contagion in Closed Religious Communities: A Case Study of Amish and Mennonite Communities in the USA During the Beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic
Individuals’ Use of Religion in Response to the Covid‐19 Pandemic as Complementary to Their Use of Medically Recommended Responses
Many individuals have engaged in behaviors to cope with and mitigate the COVID‐19 pandemic, including mask wearing and physical distancing. This study considers the extent to which individuals have also engaged in religious behaviors in response to the pandemic and how those responses are associated with behaviors like mask wearing. Using data from a probability survey of U.S. adults, our analysis finds that over half of the respondents have enga…
Perceptions of Structural Injustice and Efficacy: Participation in Low/Moderate/High-Cost Forms of Collective Action
Prior studies on perceptions of structural disadvantage and injustice, efficacy, and collective action have suffered from two major limitations: (1) they have used single-country samples, usually of economically advanced countries, and (2) generally theorized and investigated perceptions of structural injustice and efficacy separately. Drawing on value-expectancy theory, we provide an integrated theory to predict direct and conditional effects of…
Religious Tradition and Workplace Religious Discrimination: The Moderating Effects of Regional Context
A nascent but growing literature on religious discrimination in U.S. workplaces has shown that some religious identities, especially non-Christian and nonreligious identities, are more likely to experience and/or perceive such discrimination. While Christianity might represent the majority of the U.S. population, the religious composition of the United States is not monolithic. Regional differences in religious demography and culture could shape …
Religion and Regional Culture: Embedding Religious Commitment within Place
Recently, there has been a call for social scientific studies of religion to start taking “place” seriously. This paper adds to this growing literature by embedding religious commitment within place. We propose that the tension religious groups experience with their surroundings partly depends on local contexts and that certain types of local contexts may generate more tension. These contexts include regions in which the nonreligiously affiliated…
Thinkers and feelers: Emotion and giving
Covid-19 Skepticism in Relation to Other Forms of Science Skepticism
Efforts to address the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have encountered skepticism among the public, but COVID-19 is not the only medical or scientific issue that receives such skepticism. How does COVID-19 skepticism relate to other forms of science skepticism? Using new data from a nationally representative survey of U.S. adults, this study reveals that skepticism toward COVID-19 is similar to patterns of skepticism toward vaccines…
Multiple (Non)Religious Identities Leads to Undercounting Religious Nones and Asian Religious Identities
The study of religion typically assumes that individuals can only identify with one religion, which is inconsistent with lived religious experience. Surveys that only allow respondents to select one choice may underrepresent religious traditions in which multiple religious identities are more likely. We argue that religious 'nones' and those who identify with Asian religions will be more likely to identify multiple (non)religious identities and t…
Piety, Power, and the Purse: Religious Economies Theory and Urban Reform in the Holy Roman Empire
The religious economies model has been influential in the sociology of religion. Yet, propositions drawn from the model have been difficult to test in the comparative and historical study of religion, generally for lack of appropriate data. We develop a general theory of religious disestablishment and apply it to the Reformation in 16th-century Europe to explain variation in the abolition of the Catholic monopoly. We suggest three principal facto…
God will protect us: Belief in God/Higher Power's ability to intervene and Covid-19 vaccine uptake
Background Vaccines represent one of the best ways to counter the COVID-19 pandemic. However, vaccine hesitancy among the population limits the effectiveness of vaccines. Recent research has explored the role of religion in vaccine hesitancy, but in doing so has encountered a "black box" problem. There is a relationship between religion and vaccine hesitancy, but the explanation for why remains unclear. Purpose The purpose of this study is to exp…
The rise of the nones and the changing relationships between identity, belief, and behavior
One of the more remarkable trends of the past 30 years is the dramatic rise of individuals who do not identify with any religious tradition. While this trend has been well documented, some of the underlying dynamics and consequences have not been fully appreciated or explicated. We examine the General Social Survey in the period from 1972 to 2014 to examine how the increase in the ‘nones’ is tied to changes in the strength of religious identity a…
Religion and the Acceptability of White-Collar Crime: A Cross-National Analysis
This article examines whether shared religious beliefs and religious social relationships (Durkheim) and belief in a personal, moral God (Stark) negatively affect attitudes toward the acceptability of white-collar crime. In addition, using a large cross-national sample and estimating multilevel models, we test whether effects are conditional on modernization and religious contexts characterized by belief in an impersonal or amoral God. Shared rel…
Familial Ties, Location of Occupation, and Congregational Exit in Geographically-Based Congregations: A Case Study of the Amish
Background While many studies have examined the relationship between social ties and joining social movements and religious groups, few studies have investigated the relationship between social ties and the likelihood of exiting such groups. Additionally, research has not considered how geography affects the membership dynamics of geographically-based congregations, specifically whether factors associated with residential mobility may also affect…
Congregational Cohesion, Retention, and the Consequences of Size Reduction: A Longitudinal Network Analysis of an Old Order Amish Church
Congregations depend on their members for their success and survival. Yet there is a lack of research examining congregational retention or exit. Social networks are key to understanding religious group dynamics including retention; however, research on religious communities using network analysis is limited. We use Amish directories to compile longitudinal census data on intracongregational familial ties in our case study. We theorize and find t…
Culture, Region, and Cross‐National Violent Crime
Past cross‐national crime research has focused on structural factors with considerably less attention paid to cultural predictors. We extend the culture of honor thesis by identifying the importance of cultural gender inequality and test a direct measure of it on cross‐national violent crime rates. While prior research typically uses regional variables as proxies for culture, by using a direct cultural measure we are also able to identify whether…
Divine exchanges: Applying social exchange theory to religious behavior
All social exchanges involve some degree of uncertainty, although the amount depends on the conditions of the exchange. Uncertainty may arise due to the unverifiable quality of the good exchanged or the indeterminable quality of the exchange partner (i.e., whether she is trustworthy). Social exchange theory offers several mechanisms by which uncertainty may be reduced or mitigated such as through trust, repeated exchanges, reputation, information…
Religious Ritual Compliance with Covid-19 Mandates in Plain Communities: A Case Study of Amish Obituaries and Funeral Practices
Measures to limit COVID-19's spread were vital at the pandemic's onset. While some churches complied with public health mandates, others resisted them. Some religious ceremonies depend on third parties independent of the church. Funerals may require mortuary services overseen by funeral directors. Religious groups that may otherwise resist public health directives may comply when they depend on a third party. Extending street-level bureaucracy th…
Paranormal Beliefs, Vaccine Confidence, and Covid-19 Vaccine Uptake
Conservative religious ideologies have been linked to vaccine hesitancy. Yet, little is known about how paranormal beliefs relate to vaccine confidence and uptake. We hypothesize that paranormal beliefs will be negatively related to both confidence and uptake due to their association with lower levels of trust in science and a greater acceptance of conspiratorial beliefs. We test this hypothesis using a new nationally representative sample of U.S…
Individuals’ Use of Religion in Response to the Covid‐19 Pandemic as Complementary to Their Use of Medically Recommended Responses
Many individuals have engaged in behaviors to cope with and mitigate the COVID‐19 pandemic, including mask wearing and physical distancing. This study considers the extent to which individuals have also engaged in religious behaviors in response to the pandemic and how those responses are associated with behaviors like mask wearing. Using data from a probability survey of U.S. adults, our analysis finds that over half of the respondents have enga…
More than Nothing: Examining the Worldview Influences of Nonreligious College Students
Nonreligious individuals are often defined by their absence of a religious worldview rather than the worldview that might take its place. This study examines data from a unique survey that asked a representative sample of first-year college students to identify important influences on their worldview at the beginning and end of the year. Cross-sectional analyses show that nonreligious students are less likely than religious students to identify f…
The Diffusion of Protestantism in Northern Europe: Historical Embeddedness and Complex Contagions in the Adoption of the Reformation
In this article we use network theory to explain the adoption of the Protestant Reformation. We use new historical data on the connections between Hansa towns that allow us to conduct the first social network study of the Protestant Reformation. Based on an analysis of cities in central and Western Europe between 1517 and 1530, we find evidence for diffusion through both simple and complex contagion. Our operationalization of network data based o…
Social Locations of Secularization and Worldview (Dis)Enchantment: Education, Income, and Belief in Religious and Paranormal Phenomena
Forces of secularization are theorized to disenchant an individual's worldview-i.e., erode an individual's belief in nonnatural beings, forces, or abilities. Tests of this proposition, though, have often failed to measure the variety of forms of worldview enchantment found among individuals. Drawing on the broader secularization literature, we theorize correlates of (dis)enchantment and test these predictions using a nationally representative sur…
When the Waves Roll High: Religious Coping among the Amish and Mennonites during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Religious beliefs, practices, and social support facilitate coping with psychologically distressful events and circumstances. However, COVID-19 and governmental mandates for social distancing and isolation make in-person communal forms of religious coping difficult. While some congregations began holding virtual rituals, this was not an option for Amish and conservative Mennonite groups that restrict communication and media technologies as a reli…
People Forget He's Human: Charismatic Leadership in Institutionalized Religion
Most work on religious charismatic leadership is concentrated in the study of new religious movements to the neglect of more institutional forms. Whether findings from those extreme religious cases apply in the context of institutionalized religion is an empirical question. Drawing on charismatic leadership research in organizational studies, we propose that in institutionalized religion there is less conflict between the extraordinary and ordina…
Echo Chambers in a Closed Community: Vaccine Uptake and Perceived Effectiveness among the Amish and Old Order Mennonites
Recent scholarship finds linkages between religiosity and vaccination practices but neglects the role of religious, social structural influences. The relationship between religious beliefs and immunization in the context of closed religious communities remains understudied. We use a survey of Amish and Old Order Mennonite parents to explore relationships between religious belief, group closure, perceived vaccine effectiveness, and vaccine uptake.…
Endorsement of Religion-Science Conflict as an Expression of Group Solidarity among Graduate Students in the Sciences
Why do some individuals perceive religion and science as being in conflict while others do not? Research suggests that individuals' endorsement of religion-science conflict is often as much an expression of identity and group membership as it is an intellectual assessment of the relationship. This study examines this dynamic among graduate students in five science disciplines in the United States. An analysis of original survey data finds that st…
Organizational Activities and Property-Crime Victimization
Research utilizing routine activities theory has focused on the victimization of individuals and not organizations. Organizations vary in the activities that they engage in, and these activities produce variation in organizations’ exposure to potential offenders. Drawing from routine activities theory and using data on religious congregations, we examine how congregational activities shaped experiences with property crime in the past year. The an…
Boundless Faith: The Global Outreach of American Churches by Robert Wuthnow
Religious human capital revisited: Testing the effect of religious human capital on religious participation
The religious economies theory proposes that individuals make religious choices like they make other choices-rationally. This assumption has sparked many theoretical propositions on both the macro- and micro-levels. However, most empirical research has focused on testing the macro-level propositions. This study contributes to addressing this gap by testing the micro-level hypothesis that religious human capital (i.e., religious knowledge and skil…
Piety, Power, and the Purse: Religious Economies Theory and Urban Reform in the Holy Roman Empire
The religious economies model has been influential in the sociology of religion. Yet, propositions drawn from the model have been difficult to test in the comparative and historical study of religion, generally for lack of appropriate data. We develop a general theory of religious disestablishment and apply it to the Reformation in 16th-century Europe to explain variation in the abolition of the Catholic monopoly. We suggest three principal facto…
Religion and the Acceptability of White-Collar Crime: A Cross-National Analysis
This article examines whether shared religious beliefs and religious social relationships (Durkheim) and belief in a personal, moral God (Stark) negatively affect attitudes toward the acceptability of white-collar crime. In addition, using a large cross-national sample and estimating multilevel models, we test whether effects are conditional on modernization and religious contexts characterized by belief in an impersonal or amoral God. Shared rel…
Divine exchanges: Applying social exchange theory to religious behavior
All social exchanges involve some degree of uncertainty, although the amount depends on the conditions of the exchange. Uncertainty may arise due to the unverifiable quality of the good exchanged or the indeterminable quality of the exchange partner (i.e., whether she is trustworthy). Social exchange theory offers several mechanisms by which uncertainty may be reduced or mitigated such as through trust, repeated exchanges, reputation, information…
Religion and Regional Culture: Embedding Religious Commitment within Place
Recently, there has been a call for social scientific studies of religion to start taking “place” seriously. This paper adds to this growing literature by embedding religious commitment within place. We propose that the tension religious groups experience with their surroundings partly depends on local contexts and that certain types of local contexts may generate more tension. These contexts include regions in which the nonreligiously affiliated…
“God Is Like a Drug…”: Explaining Interaction Ritual Chains in American Megachurches
Megachurches have been criticized as superficial sources of entertainment that do not produce significant feelings of belonging, moral responsibility, or spirituality. This article challenges popular criticisms of megachurches and, drawing on interaction ritual theory, proposes that megachurches are successful interaction ritual venues and powerful purveyors of emotional religious experience. We predict that these interaction rituals produce posi…
Perceptions of Structural Injustice and Efficacy: Participation in Low/Moderate/High-Cost Forms of Collective Action
Prior studies on perceptions of structural disadvantage and injustice, efficacy, and collective action have suffered from two major limitations: (1) they have used single-country samples, usually of economically advanced countries, and (2) generally theorized and investigated perceptions of structural injustice and efficacy separately. Drawing on value-expectancy theory, we provide an integrated theory to predict direct and conditional effects of…
Thinkers and feelers: Emotion and giving
The Problem of Solidarity in Insurgent Collective Action: The Nore Mutiny of 1797
How do insurgents engaged in high-risk collective action maintain solidarity when faced with increasing costs and dangers? Based on a combination of process tracing through qualitative evidence and an event-history analysis of a unique data set assembled from naval archives concerning a mass mutiny in the Royal Navy in 1797, this article explains why insurgent solidarity varied among the ships participating in the mutiny. Maintaining solidarity w…
People Forget He's Human: Charismatic Leadership in Institutionalized Religion
Most work on religious charismatic leadership is concentrated in the study of new religious movements to the neglect of more institutional forms. Whether findings from those extreme religious cases apply in the context of institutionalized religion is an empirical question. Drawing on charismatic leadership research in organizational studies, we propose that in institutionalized religion there is less conflict between the extraordinary and ordina…
Religious Tradition and Workplace Religious Discrimination: The Moderating Effects of Regional Context
A nascent but growing literature on religious discrimination in U.S. workplaces has shown that some religious identities, especially non-Christian and nonreligious identities, are more likely to experience and/or perceive such discrimination. While Christianity might represent the majority of the U.S. population, the religious composition of the United States is not monolithic. Regional differences in religious demography and culture could shape …
The rise of the nones and the changing relationships between identity, belief, and behavior
One of the more remarkable trends of the past 30 years is the dramatic rise of individuals who do not identify with any religious tradition. While this trend has been well documented, some of the underlying dynamics and consequences have not been fully appreciated or explicated. We examine the General Social Survey in the period from 1972 to 2014 to examine how the increase in the ‘nones’ is tied to changes in the strength of religious identity a…
Culture, Region, and Cross‐National Violent Crime
Past cross‐national crime research has focused on structural factors with considerably less attention paid to cultural predictors. We extend the culture of honor thesis by identifying the importance of cultural gender inequality and test a direct measure of it on cross‐national violent crime rates. While prior research typically uses regional variables as proxies for culture, by using a direct cultural measure we are also able to identify whether…
The Diffusion of Protestantism in Northern Europe: Historical Embeddedness and Complex Contagions in the Adoption of the Reformation
In this article we use network theory to explain the adoption of the Protestant Reformation. We use new historical data on the connections between Hansa towns that allow us to conduct the first social network study of the Protestant Reformation. Based on an analysis of cities in central and Western Europe between 1517 and 1530, we find evidence for diffusion through both simple and complex contagion. Our operationalization of network data based o…
A Double‐Edged Sword: The Countervailing Effects of Religion on Cross‐National Violent Crime
Objective There has been a growing interest in the relationship between culture and crime in recent years, but there is little research investigating the role of religion. To clarify this empirical cleavage, we propose a Durkheimian model of the countervailing effects of religion on violent crime. Methods We test our propositions with robust linear models and a large country sample ( N = 100). Results We show that religious intensity and belief i…
Adopting a Stigmatized Label: Social Determinants of Identifying as an Atheist beyond Disbelief
An individual’s identity may not appear to correspond to his or her beliefs and behaviors. Such incongruence may be particularly likely when an identity is stigmatized. We examine this dynamic in the context of atheists. Being an atheist has often been equated with stating a disbelief in God, but this ignores the distinct phenomenon of identifying as an atheist. This study asks what influences the likelihood that an individual will identify as an…
Emotion, Religion, and Civic Engagement: A Multilevel Analysis of U.S. Congregations
Past research on religion and civic engagement generally only examines one type of engagement and focuses on cognitive rather than emotional predictors. Extending Collins’ interaction ritual theory, I investigate the relationship between experiencing emotional energy during religious services and participating in formal and informal congregational and noncongregational civic engagement. I hypothesize that individuals who report experiencing emoti…
Regional, structural, and demographic predictors of violent victimization: A cross-national, multilevel analysis of 112 countries
Routine activities and lifestyles theories emphasize structural and demographic predictors that affect the opportunity to commit crime and the likelihood of being victimized. Past research tends to focus on either the individual- or country-level with few studies incorporating both. Additionally, past research primarily draws on the International Crime Victimization Survey, which results in small country samples that are biased toward developed n…
Is West Virginia A Religious Void? An Investigation
A recent map depicting levels of religious adherence across the United States appeared to show that West Virginia has a very low level of religious adherence, similar to some areas of the West coast and New England. Using individual-level survey data we investigate if this is an accurate portrayal of religion in the state. We find that West Virginia is more similar to states presented as highly religious in the map, such as Texas and Alabama, whe…
Megachurches as Total Environments
Megachurches must be understood as total environments. By providing programmes for nearly every stage of life, megachurches combine a sense of solidarity with a feeling of dependence. Employing Randall Collins’s theory of interaction ritual chains, this chapter shows that the desire for emotional energy (EE), which is interpreted as the physical manifestation of God’s love, has been embraced by megachurches and is the key to understanding their s…
More than Nothing: Examining the Worldview Influences of Nonreligious College Students
Nonreligious individuals are often defined by their absence of a religious worldview rather than the worldview that might take its place. This study examines data from a unique survey that asked a representative sample of first-year college students to identify important influences on their worldview at the beginning and end of the year. Cross-sectional analyses show that nonreligious students are less likely than religious students to identify f…
Congregational Cohesion, Retention, and the Consequences of Size Reduction: A Longitudinal Network Analysis of an Old Order Amish Church
Congregations depend on their members for their success and survival. Yet there is a lack of research examining congregational retention or exit. Social networks are key to understanding religious group dynamics including retention; however, research on religious communities using network analysis is limited. We use Amish directories to compile longitudinal census data on intracongregational familial ties in our case study. We theorize and find t…
Organizational Activities and Property-Crime Victimization
Research utilizing routine activities theory has focused on the victimization of individuals and not organizations. Organizations vary in the activities that they engage in, and these activities produce variation in organizations’ exposure to potential offenders. Drawing from routine activities theory and using data on religious congregations, we examine how congregational activities shaped experiences with property crime in the past year. The an…
Christian nationalism and Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy and uptake
Sociology (44 works) · Psychology (39 works) · Social Psychology (33 works) · Political science (32 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (30 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (26 works) · Law (22 works) · Religion, Society, and Development (19 works) · Medicine (18 works) · Epistemology (16 works)