R A Thomson
Biographic Data
| ID | 29870 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R A Thomson |
| GIVEN NAMES | R A |
| FAMILY NAME | Thomson |
| SIGNATURE | THOMSON R A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Alabama in Huntsville |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1294-1145 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 55 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The Relationship between Workplace Status and Workplace Religious Expression
A growing body of literature explores religious expression in workplaces, but comparatively little research examines how religious expression might be shaped by inequality in workplace status. We hypothesize that perceived work autonomy and socioeconomic status (SES) both function as mediating links between organizational status and religious expression. Drawing on a sample of employed adults from a nationally-representative survey in the United …
Buffering the Stigma? On the Racialization of Religious Attendance and Health among Formerly Incarcerated Persons
Religious involvement can benefit health by providing social and/or psychological resources for coping with strain. But it can have the opposite effect under certain conditions, such as feeling abandoned by God or belonging to a tradition that discourages medical care. Here, I consider whether religion buffers the stigma-related health risks of prior incarceration, and whether racial-ethnic status moderates the relationship. Using panel data from…
Determinants of Confidence in U.S. Institutions: Comparing Congress and Corporations
Objectives The political discourse surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election highlighted discontent with both Congress and corporations, a reality corroborated in recent scholarship highlighting declines in institutional confidence among U.S. citizens. Here we test theories of institutional confidence to understand the social and cultural determinants of confidence in Congress and corporations prior to the start of the 2016 presidential cam…
Publishing and Parenting in Academic Science: A Study of Different National Contexts
In the first cross-national, mixed-methods study on gender, family, and science, the authors examined the relationship between research productivity and family life for male and female physicists and biologists in four countries: India, Taiwan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Drawing on surveys of 5,756 respondents and follow-up interviews with 369 participants, the authors found that the relationship between family responsibilities an…
The very ivory tower: Pathways reproducing racial-ethnic stratification in US academic science
We theorized that income racial-ethnic stratification among academic scientists is perpetuated by inequality of scientific capital including institutional prestige, research funding, publishing, and tenure. We tested our model with original survey data of US biologists and physicists (n = 1,160). Findings indicated that white scientists reported higher incomes than non-white scientists despite no significant differences in productivity, funding, …
Alternative Spirituality among Global Scientists
Scholars, especially those in the West, often attribute the construction of alternative spirituality to a culture of individualism. Here, we explore how non-religious scientists construct spirituality in different national contexts, focusing on academic physicists and biologists. Two research questions guide our analyses: How do scientists construct an alternative spirituality and to what extent are their constructions conditioned by the contexts…
Polarized Scientists? Exploring Political Differences about Religion and Science among U.S. Biologists and Physicists 1
From the Texas textbook debate to the March for Science, visible displays of activism illuminate how deeply politicized the science‐religion interface has become. However, little is known about the extent to which scientists’ attitudes about science and religion are politicized. Using original survey data from 1,989 U.S. academic biologists and physicists, we examine the degree to which political views shape how scientists perceive the relationsh…
Bringing Back the Social into the Sociology of Religion: Critical Approaches
Doing Gender' and 'Doing Religion' in Science: A Cross-National Examination
Women tend to be both underrepresented in science and overrepresented in organized religion, yet the connection between these two phenomena is rarely examined. With survey data collected among 6,537 biologists and physicists from four national contexts-the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and India-we test whether science as a social field shapes religious expressions and attitudes differently for men and women. Findings reveal a religio…
Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion
In order to take an in-depth look at the relationship between science and religion around the world, the authors of this book completed the most comprehensive international study of scientists’ attitudes toward religion ever undertaken, surveying more than twenty thousand scientists and conducting in-depth interviews with over six hundred of them. From this wealth of data, the authors extract the real story of the relationship between science and…
Selection versus Socialization? Interrogating the Sources of Secularity in Global Science
Science and secularization have been linked in scholarship and the public imagination. Some suggest that scientific training leads to loss of religion. Yet there is only speculation about the processes by which scientists might become less religious and whether such processes are confined to the west or hold across national contexts. Using original survey data ( N = 5,006) of biologists and physicists in India, Italy, and the United States, as we…
Religious Conservatives and TV News: Are They More Likely to be Religiously Offended
Partisan selectivity of news media and attitudinal polarization are linked, yet the bulk of research focuses on the role of political attitudes while neglecting religious dispositions. We consider the degree to which both network and cable news media offend viewers in terms of both politics and religion. Using data from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey, we find that white evangelicals have higher odds than mainline Protestants of reporting taking …
God, Party, and the Poor: How Politics and Religion Interact to Affect Economic Justice Attitudes
Moral attitudes justifying economic inequality are often embedded within conservative religion and politics in the United States, even as traditional Christian values assert the need for compassion toward the poor. Using the Baylor Religion Survey, we assessed the role of religion in influencing partisan attitudes about poverty, finding that Republicans not only oppose federal policy aimed toward redistribution of wealth but also articulate less …
Religious belief in Christian higher education: Is religious and political diversity relativizing
While attending college, religious participation tends to decline among American students, but evidence of changes in religious belief is less clear. On the bases of both secularization theory and the moral communities thesis, we used multi-level modeling techniques to test whether institutional diversity predicts changes in student belief at Christian institutions. Results suggest that declines in absolutism were associated with increasing relig…
God Versus Party: Competing Effects on Attitudes Concerning Criminal Punishment, National Security, and Military Service
We explore how images of God interact with political party to predict attitudes concerning the appropriate role of government in both criminal punishment and national security. Using the second wave of the Baylor Religion Survey (2007), we analyze the extent to which beliefs regarding God's moral judgment moderate the influence of party affiliation on opinions about the death penalty, fighting terrorism, punishing criminals, serving in the milita…
Homeschool and Underage Drinking: Is It More Protective than Public and Private Schools
This article examines differences in alcohol use between homeschool and both public and private school students. Applying regression analyses to two waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion, we found that homeschoolers were less likely to drink alcohol and get drunk than non-homeschoolers, which was explained in part by variables of social bonding, social learning, and, to a greater extent, religiosity. Specifically, parental monitoring …
Christian Colleges and Universities as Moral Communities: The Effects of Institutional Characteristics on Student Religiosity
Research suggests that some Christian colleges function as moral communities that can help sustain religious belief and practice (Hill in J Sci Study Relig 48:515-534, 2009 ). In this paper, we explore several mechanisms by which this phenomenon may occur. Using a survey of college students from 31 institutions belonging to the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, we examine how institutional characteristics influence changes in relig…
God, Party, and the Poor: How Politics and Religion Interact to Affect Economic Justice Attitudes
Moral attitudes justifying economic inequality are often embedded within conservative religion and politics in the United States, even as traditional Christian values assert the need for compassion toward the poor. Using the Baylor Religion Survey, we assessed the role of religion in influencing partisan attitudes about poverty, finding that Republicans not only oppose federal policy aimed toward redistribution of wealth but also articulate less …
God Versus Party: Competing Effects on Attitudes Concerning Criminal Punishment, National Security, and Military Service
We explore how images of God interact with political party to predict attitudes concerning the appropriate role of government in both criminal punishment and national security. Using the second wave of the Baylor Religion Survey (2007), we analyze the extent to which beliefs regarding God's moral judgment moderate the influence of party affiliation on opinions about the death penalty, fighting terrorism, punishing criminals, serving in the milita…
The very ivory tower: Pathways reproducing racial-ethnic stratification in US academic science
We theorized that income racial-ethnic stratification among academic scientists is perpetuated by inequality of scientific capital including institutional prestige, research funding, publishing, and tenure. We tested our model with original survey data of US biologists and physicists (n = 1,160). Findings indicated that white scientists reported higher incomes than non-white scientists despite no significant differences in productivity, funding, …
Publishing and Parenting in Academic Science: A Study of Different National Contexts
In the first cross-national, mixed-methods study on gender, family, and science, the authors examined the relationship between research productivity and family life for male and female physicists and biologists in four countries: India, Taiwan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Drawing on surveys of 5,756 respondents and follow-up interviews with 369 participants, the authors found that the relationship between family responsibilities an…
Bringing Back the Social into the Sociology of Religion: Critical Approaches
Polarized Scientists? Exploring Political Differences about Religion and Science among U.S. Biologists and Physicists 1
From the Texas textbook debate to the March for Science, visible displays of activism illuminate how deeply politicized the science‐religion interface has become. However, little is known about the extent to which scientists’ attitudes about science and religion are politicized. Using original survey data from 1,989 U.S. academic biologists and physicists, we examine the degree to which political views shape how scientists perceive the relationsh…
Selection versus Socialization? Interrogating the Sources of Secularity in Global Science
Science and secularization have been linked in scholarship and the public imagination. Some suggest that scientific training leads to loss of religion. Yet there is only speculation about the processes by which scientists might become less religious and whether such processes are confined to the west or hold across national contexts. Using original survey data ( N = 5,006) of biologists and physicists in India, Italy, and the United States, as we…
Religious Conservatives and TV News: Are They More Likely to be Religiously Offended
Partisan selectivity of news media and attitudinal polarization are linked, yet the bulk of research focuses on the role of political attitudes while neglecting religious dispositions. We consider the degree to which both network and cable news media offend viewers in terms of both politics and religion. Using data from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey, we find that white evangelicals have higher odds than mainline Protestants of reporting taking …
Christian Colleges and Universities as Moral Communities: The Effects of Institutional Characteristics on Student Religiosity
Research suggests that some Christian colleges function as moral communities that can help sustain religious belief and practice (Hill in J Sci Study Relig 48:515-534, 2009 ). In this paper, we explore several mechanisms by which this phenomenon may occur. Using a survey of college students from 31 institutions belonging to the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, we examine how institutional characteristics influence changes in relig…
Determinants of Confidence in U.S. Institutions: Comparing Congress and Corporations
Objectives The political discourse surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election highlighted discontent with both Congress and corporations, a reality corroborated in recent scholarship highlighting declines in institutional confidence among U.S. citizens. Here we test theories of institutional confidence to understand the social and cultural determinants of confidence in Congress and corporations prior to the start of the 2016 presidential cam…
Alternative Spirituality among Global Scientists
Scholars, especially those in the West, often attribute the construction of alternative spirituality to a culture of individualism. Here, we explore how non-religious scientists construct spirituality in different national contexts, focusing on academic physicists and biologists. Two research questions guide our analyses: How do scientists construct an alternative spirituality and to what extent are their constructions conditioned by the contexts…
Doing Gender' and 'Doing Religion' in Science: A Cross-National Examination
Women tend to be both underrepresented in science and overrepresented in organized religion, yet the connection between these two phenomena is rarely examined. With survey data collected among 6,537 biologists and physicists from four national contexts-the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and India-we test whether science as a social field shapes religious expressions and attitudes differently for men and women. Findings reveal a religio…
Homeschool and Underage Drinking: Is It More Protective than Public and Private Schools
This article examines differences in alcohol use between homeschool and both public and private school students. Applying regression analyses to two waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion, we found that homeschoolers were less likely to drink alcohol and get drunk than non-homeschoolers, which was explained in part by variables of social bonding, social learning, and, to a greater extent, religiosity. Specifically, parental monitoring …
Buffering the Stigma? On the Racialization of Religious Attendance and Health among Formerly Incarcerated Persons
Religious involvement can benefit health by providing social and/or psychological resources for coping with strain. But it can have the opposite effect under certain conditions, such as feeling abandoned by God or belonging to a tradition that discourages medical care. Here, I consider whether religion buffers the stigma-related health risks of prior incarceration, and whether racial-ethnic status moderates the relationship. Using panel data from…
Christian Colleges and Universities as Moral Communities: The Effects of Institutional Characteristics on Student Religiosity
Research suggests that some Christian colleges function as moral communities that can help sustain religious belief and practice (Hill in J Sci Study Relig 48:515-534, 2009 ). In this paper, we explore several mechanisms by which this phenomenon may occur. Using a survey of college students from 31 institutions belonging to the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, we examine how institutional characteristics influence changes in relig…
God Versus Party: Competing Effects on Attitudes Concerning Criminal Punishment, National Security, and Military Service
We explore how images of God interact with political party to predict attitudes concerning the appropriate role of government in both criminal punishment and national security. Using the second wave of the Baylor Religion Survey (2007), we analyze the extent to which beliefs regarding God's moral judgment moderate the influence of party affiliation on opinions about the death penalty, fighting terrorism, punishing criminals, serving in the milita…
Homeschool and Underage Drinking: Is It More Protective than Public and Private Schools
This article examines differences in alcohol use between homeschool and both public and private school students. Applying regression analyses to two waves of the National Study of Youth and Religion, we found that homeschoolers were less likely to drink alcohol and get drunk than non-homeschoolers, which was explained in part by variables of social bonding, social learning, and, to a greater extent, religiosity. Specifically, parental monitoring …
Religious belief in Christian higher education: Is religious and political diversity relativizing
While attending college, religious participation tends to decline among American students, but evidence of changes in religious belief is less clear. On the bases of both secularization theory and the moral communities thesis, we used multi-level modeling techniques to test whether institutional diversity predicts changes in student belief at Christian institutions. Results suggest that declines in absolutism were associated with increasing relig…
God, Party, and the Poor: How Politics and Religion Interact to Affect Economic Justice Attitudes
Moral attitudes justifying economic inequality are often embedded within conservative religion and politics in the United States, even as traditional Christian values assert the need for compassion toward the poor. Using the Baylor Religion Survey, we assessed the role of religion in influencing partisan attitudes about poverty, finding that Republicans not only oppose federal policy aimed toward redistribution of wealth but also articulate less …
Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think About Religion
In order to take an in-depth look at the relationship between science and religion around the world, the authors of this book completed the most comprehensive international study of scientists’ attitudes toward religion ever undertaken, surveying more than twenty thousand scientists and conducting in-depth interviews with over six hundred of them. From this wealth of data, the authors extract the real story of the relationship between science and…
Selection versus Socialization? Interrogating the Sources of Secularity in Global Science
Science and secularization have been linked in scholarship and the public imagination. Some suggest that scientific training leads to loss of religion. Yet there is only speculation about the processes by which scientists might become less religious and whether such processes are confined to the west or hold across national contexts. Using original survey data ( N = 5,006) of biologists and physicists in India, Italy, and the United States, as we…
Religious Conservatives and TV News: Are They More Likely to be Religiously Offended
Partisan selectivity of news media and attitudinal polarization are linked, yet the bulk of research focuses on the role of political attitudes while neglecting religious dispositions. We consider the degree to which both network and cable news media offend viewers in terms of both politics and religion. Using data from the 2010 Baylor Religion Survey, we find that white evangelicals have higher odds than mainline Protestants of reporting taking …
Polarized Scientists? Exploring Political Differences about Religion and Science among U.S. Biologists and Physicists 1
From the Texas textbook debate to the March for Science, visible displays of activism illuminate how deeply politicized the science‐religion interface has become. However, little is known about the extent to which scientists’ attitudes about science and religion are politicized. Using original survey data from 1,989 U.S. academic biologists and physicists, we examine the degree to which political views shape how scientists perceive the relationsh…
Bringing Back the Social into the Sociology of Religion: Critical Approaches
Doing Gender' and 'Doing Religion' in Science: A Cross-National Examination
Women tend to be both underrepresented in science and overrepresented in organized religion, yet the connection between these two phenomena is rarely examined. With survey data collected among 6,537 biologists and physicists from four national contexts-the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, and India-we test whether science as a social field shapes religious expressions and attitudes differently for men and women. Findings reveal a religio…
Determinants of Confidence in U.S. Institutions: Comparing Congress and Corporations
Objectives The political discourse surrounding the 2016 U.S. presidential election highlighted discontent with both Congress and corporations, a reality corroborated in recent scholarship highlighting declines in institutional confidence among U.S. citizens. Here we test theories of institutional confidence to understand the social and cultural determinants of confidence in Congress and corporations prior to the start of the 2016 presidential cam…
Publishing and Parenting in Academic Science: A Study of Different National Contexts
In the first cross-national, mixed-methods study on gender, family, and science, the authors examined the relationship between research productivity and family life for male and female physicists and biologists in four countries: India, Taiwan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Drawing on surveys of 5,756 respondents and follow-up interviews with 369 participants, the authors found that the relationship between family responsibilities an…
The very ivory tower: Pathways reproducing racial-ethnic stratification in US academic science
We theorized that income racial-ethnic stratification among academic scientists is perpetuated by inequality of scientific capital including institutional prestige, research funding, publishing, and tenure. We tested our model with original survey data of US biologists and physicists (n = 1,160). Findings indicated that white scientists reported higher incomes than non-white scientists despite no significant differences in productivity, funding, …
Alternative Spirituality among Global Scientists
Scholars, especially those in the West, often attribute the construction of alternative spirituality to a culture of individualism. Here, we explore how non-religious scientists construct spirituality in different national contexts, focusing on academic physicists and biologists. Two research questions guide our analyses: How do scientists construct an alternative spirituality and to what extent are their constructions conditioned by the contexts…
Buffering the Stigma? On the Racialization of Religious Attendance and Health among Formerly Incarcerated Persons
Religious involvement can benefit health by providing social and/or psychological resources for coping with strain. But it can have the opposite effect under certain conditions, such as feeling abandoned by God or belonging to a tradition that discourages medical care. Here, I consider whether religion buffers the stigma-related health risks of prior incarceration, and whether racial-ethnic status moderates the relationship. Using panel data from…
The Relationship between Workplace Status and Workplace Religious Expression
A growing body of literature explores religious expression in workplaces, but comparatively little research examines how religious expression might be shaped by inequality in workplace status. We hypothesize that perceived work autonomy and socioeconomic status (SES) both function as mediating links between organizational status and religious expression. Drawing on a sample of employed adults from a nationally-representative survey in the United …
Sociology (16 works) · Political science (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Religion, Society, and Development (11 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (10 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (10 works) · Social Psychology (10 works) · Social science (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works)