Religion in America—1972–2006: Religious Affiliation, Attendance, and Strength of Faith

2010 ◽  
Vol 106 (3) ◽  
pp. 875-890 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin J. Flannelly ◽  
Kathleen Galek ◽  
Jackson Kytle ◽  
Nava R. Silton
Keyword(s):  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
African American Female ◽  
Least Squares Regression ◽  
Religiously Affiliated ◽  
Religious Services ◽  
Strength Of Faith ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

The present study used data from the General Social Survey, collected between 1972 and 2006 ( N = 45,463) to analyze changes over time in three aspects of religion among American adults: religious affiliation, frequency of attending religious services, and strength of faith. The last two measures were analyzed only for survey participants who had a religious affiliation. Ordinary least-squares regression confirmed a significant decrease in religious affiliation over time, after controlling for socio-demographic variables that are known to be associated with religion. A significant decrease in attending religious services was found among those survey participants who were religiously affiliated. As expected, participants who were African American, female, older, and from the South were more religious according to all three measures. No effect of birth-cohort was found for any religious measure. The results are discussed in the context of Stark and Bainbridge's 1996 theory of religion.

Religion and Happiness

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hout ◽  
Andrew Greeley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
Religious Services ◽  
Using Data ◽  
International Social

This chapter discusses the link between happiness and religion. It draws on meaning-and-belonging theory to deduce that a religious affiliation heightens happiness through participation in collective religious rituals. Attendance and engagement appear key: a merely nominal religious affiliation makes people little happier. Notably, two religious foundations of happiness—affiliation with organized religious groups and attendance at services—have fallen. Softened religious engagement, then, may contribute to the slight downturn in general happiness. In fact, steady happiness is reported among those who participate frequently in religious services, but falling levels among those who are less involved. The chapter also considers the association between religion and happiness outside the United States using data from the International Social Survey Program, an international collaborative survey to which the General Social Survey contributes the American data.

scholarly journals Bikes or Bust? Analyzing the Impact of Bicycle Infrastructure on Business Performance in San Francisco

2019 ◽  
Vol 2673 (12) ◽  
pp. 277-289
Author(s):  
Raleigh McCoy ◽  
Joseph A. Poirier ◽  
Karen Chapple
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Business Performance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Grocery Stores ◽  
Least Squares Regression ◽  
Mode Shift ◽  
Bicycle Infrastructure ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

Transportation agencies at the local, state, and federal levels in the United States (U.S.) have shown a growing interest in expanding bicycle infrastructure, given its link to mode shift and safety goals. These projects, however, are far from universally accepted. Business owners have been particularly vocal opponents, claiming that bicycle infrastructure will diminish sales or fundamentally change the character of their neighborhoods. Using the case of San Francisco, this research explores the relationship between bicycle infrastructure and business performance in two ways: change in sales over time, and a comparison of sales for new and existing businesses. An ordinary least squares regression is used to model the change in sales over time, isolating the effect of location on bicycle infrastructure while controlling for characteristics of the business, corridor, and surrounding neighborhood. Through a series of t-tests, average sales for businesses that pre-date bicycle infrastructure and for those that opened after the installation of such projects are compared. Ultimately, the research suggests that location on bicycle infrastructure and changes in on-street parking supply generally did not have a significant effect on the change in sales, with a few exceptions. Businesses that sell goods for the home or auto-related goods and services saw a significant decline in sales when located on corridors with bike lanes. New and existing businesses generally had similar sales, though not across the board. New restaurants and grocery stores had significantly higher sales than their existing counterparts, suggesting bicycle infrastructure may attract more upmarket businesses in those industries.

scholarly journals The Diverging Beliefs and Practices of the Religiously Affiliated and Unaffiliated in the United States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Gullickson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Empirical Finding ◽  
Dilution Effect ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religiously Affiliated ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Generational Succession ◽  
Religiously Unaffiliated

Since 1990, the percent of Americans with no religious affiliation has grown substantially. Prior work has shown that between 1990 and 2000, the religiously unaffiliated population also became more religious in belief and practices, both in absolute terms and relative to the affiliated population. This curious empirical finding is believed to be driven by a dilution effect in which moderate believers disaffiliated from organized religion without giving up religious beliefs and practices. In the current article, I use data from the General Social Survey to show that this convergence of beliefs and practices of the religiously affiliated and unaffiliated ended around 2000. Since 2000, the religiously unaffiliated have decreased their belief in god and the afterlife, and have not increased their prayer frequency. The trends for the affiliated have been either increasing or unchanging and thus the religious practices and beliefs of the religiously affiliated and unaffiliated have diverged since 2000. The change in trend for the religiously unaffiliated after 2000 cannot fully be explained generational succession or the growing percentage of Americans raised without religion. Although the unaffiliated remain very heterogeneous in their beliefs and practices, these results point to a growing religious polarization in the United States.

Trends in Sentencing of Federal Drug Offenders: Findings From U.S. District Courts 2002–2017

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-108
Author(s):  
Alexander Testa ◽  
Jacqueline G. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
District Courts ◽  
Least Squares Regression ◽  
Prison Sentence ◽  
Criminal Sentencing ◽  
Drug Offenders ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Substantial Heterogeneity ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Sentencing Outcomes

This study uses 16 years (2002–2017) of federal criminal drug sentences from the U.S. Sentencing Commission (USSC) to examine trends in two criminal sentencing outcomes: whether a defendant received a prison sentence and the length of a prison sentence. Logistic and ordinary least squares regression analyses were used to assess criminal sentencing outcomes. Moderation analyses are conducted to assess variation in sentencing for specific drug offenses over time. Results demonstrate that sentencing for federal drug crimes has become less severe over time. However, there is substantial heterogeneity in sentencing across different drug types, with pharmaceutical opioid cases receiving the least leniency over time regarding the incarceration decision and methamphetamine cases experiencing the lowest reduction in the length of prison sentences from 2002 to 2017. Finally, our analysis stratified by race/ethnicity suggested that there is heterogeneity in sentencing outcomes for federal drug offenders, conditional on racial and ethnic background.

Developmental Heterogeneity in Social Support Among Juvenile Offenders: Relevance of Social Support Withdrawal for the Dulling of Maturational Decline in Offending

2019 ◽  
Vol 66 (5) ◽  
pp. 712-733
Author(s):  
Thomas W. Wojciechowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Juvenile Offenders ◽  
Least Squares ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Least Squares Regression ◽  
Group Assignment ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Trajectory Group ◽  
Pathways To Desistance ◽  
Over Time

Social support is a highly relevant predictor of offending. Despite this, little research has examined how this construct develops over time and how withdrawal of social support may result in “late bloomer” offending. This study used the Pathways to Desistance to data to test hypotheses related to these research questions. Group-based trajectory modeling was used to identify trajectories of social support, and ordinary least squares regression was used to determine the relevance of trajectory group assignment for predicting differences in offending between adolescence and adulthood. Results indicated that withdrawal of social support resulted in a dulling of the maturational decline in offending frequency typically observed following adolescence. Implications are discussed.

Faith and Marital Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploring the Links Between Religious Affiliation and Intimate Partner Violence Among Women in Ghana

2016 ◽  
Vol 35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 25-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Baffour K. Takyi ◽  
Enoch Lamptey
Keyword(s):  
Intimate Partner Violence ◽  
Partner Violence ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Intimate Partner ◽  
Marital Violence ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Least Squares Regression ◽  
Household Level ◽  
Sub Saharan

Research shows that intimate partner violence is quite widespread throughout the world. In the case of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), studies have concluded that cultural and economic factors help to sustain the spread and maintenance of intimate partner violence in the region. Although the cultural interpretations predominate in current research, few have examined the links between religion, an important cultural variable, and intimate partner violence in SSA. Given the growth and importance of religion in African cultures, we used data from the 2008 Ghana Demographic Health Survey ( n = 1,831) and ordinary least squares regression method to investigate the links between religious affiliation and intimate partner violence. Findings from our study point to some variations in intimate partner violence by affiliation. This is especially true with regard to women’s experience with sexual violence and emotional violence. Besides religion, we also found ideologies that support wife abuse, the nature of decision-making process at the household level, and husband’s use of alcohol to be important determinants of intimate partner violence in Ghana. We examined the implications of these findings.

Religious perceptions of crime and implications for punitiveness

2020 ◽  
pp. 146247452096003
Author(s):  
Christopher H Seto ◽  
Iman Said
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Crime Rates ◽  
Least Squares Regression ◽  
Moral Failure ◽  
Crime Perceptions ◽  
Perceptions Of Crime ◽  
Nationally Representative

This study tests the role of crime perceptions in mediating the relationship between religiosity and punitive attitudes about criminal justice. Specifically, we estimate the effects of (a) religious affiliation and (b) fundamentalism on punitiveness and assess mediation by dispositional attribution of crime, perceived rising crime rates, perceived immigrant crime, and fear of violent victimization. Data are from the 2014 wave of the Chapman Survey on American Fears, a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States (N = 1,573). We estimated religious effects on punitiveness using ordinary least squares regression and assessed mediation by crime perceptions with the Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) method. Punitiveness was positively associated with Mainline Protestant affiliation (vs. non-religious), Catholic affiliation (vs. non-religious), and fundamentalism (fundamentalism also largely accounted for heightened punitiveness among Evangelical Protestants). Perceptions of crime accounted for about 60% of the effects of religious affiliation on punitiveness and nearly 100% of the effect of fundamentalism. Perceptions of crime as caused by evil or moral failure, belief in rising crime rates, and perceptions of immigrant crime were important to explaining religious effects on punitiveness, while fear of violence was relatively unimportant. These findings illuminate the perceptual mechanisms underlying religious effects on criminal justice attitudes.

Religion and Political Conflict: “No Religious Affiliation” in the United States

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristi Winters
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Religious Affiliation ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Religious Identification ◽  
Over Time

After years of exceptionally high levels of religious adherence and identity, the latter part of the 20th century saw the start of a trend: increasing numbers of Americans reported they had no religious affiliation when asked by pollsters. From the start of polling on religious beliefs and identity in the mid-20th century, Americans were unlikely to report they had “none” when asked to name their religious identity. National surveys in the 1970s and 1980s found fewer than one-in-ten American adults reported they had no religious affiliation. After decades of reported religious belief levels and religious identity patterns that remained robust, America is experiencing a decline in religiosity in the 21st century. Research in 2016 found that nearly one-quarter of those surveyed identified as “atheist,” “agnostic,” or “nothing in particular,” nearly triple the 9% reporting the same during the General Social Survey in 1992. Those without a religious identification are now the second largest “religious” group in America What accounts for the observed changes in American’s religious affiliation responses over time? Social researchers have identified more than one possible source of change. One could be changing social forces; a second source of variation might come from changes in which people, how people, and why people answer religious affiliation questions over time; and third, the factors people say were the source of change in their religious affiliation.

scholarly journals Social Distances of Whites to Racial or Ethnic Minorities

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Michalikova ◽  
Philip Q. Yang
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Ethnic Relations ◽  
Unexpected Result ◽  
Least Squares Regression ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Race And Ethnic Relations

Prior research on social distance between racial or ethnic groups in the United States has focused mainly on attitudes of white Americans toward African Americans. Extending previous research, this study analyzes social distances of whites to racial or ethnic minority groups by investigating how whites feel about blacks, Asians, and Hispanics. The main hypothesis is that whites feel coolest toward blacks, warmest toward Asians, and somewhat in between toward Hispanics. The 2002 General Social Survey and ordinary least squares regression are used to test the hypothesis. The results indicate that contrary to our hypothesis, whites feel coolest toward Asians, warmest toward Hispanics, and somewhat in between toward blacks. Nativity, religious similarity/dissimilarity, racial hierarchy and tension, proximity of the country of origin, and group diversity may offer plausible explanations for the unexpected result. This study also examines which types of whites are more likely to maintain a greater or smaller social distance with the three minority groups. Implications of the findings for race and ethnic relations today are addressed.

Comparison of two devices for measuring exercise transcutaneous oxygen pressures in patients with claudication

VASA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 355-362 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Urban ◽  
Alban Fouasson-Chailloux ◽  
Isabelle Signolet ◽  
Christophe Colas Ribas ◽  
Mathieu Feuilloy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Oxygen Pressure ◽  
Optical Sensors ◽  
Chemical Sensors ◽  
Transcutaneous Oxygen ◽  
Starting Values ◽  
Two Systems ◽  
Transcutaneous Oxygen Pressure ◽  
New Sensors ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Abstract. Summary: Background: We aimed at estimating the agreement between the Medicap® (photo-optical) and Radiometer® (electro-chemical) sensors during exercise transcutaneous oxygen pressure (tcpO2) tests. Our hypothesis was that although absolute starting values (tcpO2rest: mean over 2 minutes) might be different, tcpO2-changes over time and the minimal value of the decrease from rest of oxygen pressure (DROPmin) results at exercise shall be concordant between the two systems. Patients and methods: Forty seven patients with arterial claudication (65 + / - 7 years) performed a treadmill test with 5 probes each of the electro-chemical and photo-optical devices simultaneously, one of each system on the chest, on each buttock and on each calf. Results: Seventeen Medicap® probes disconnected during the tests. tcpO2rest and DROPmin values were higher with Medicap® than with Radiometer®, by 13.7 + / - 17.1 mm Hg and 3.4 + / - 11.7 mm Hg, respectively. Despite the differences in absolute starting values, changes over time were similar between the two systems. The concordance between the two systems was approximately 70 % for classification of test results from DROPmin. Conclusions: Photo-optical sensors are promising alternatives to electro-chemical sensors for exercise oximetry, provided that miniaturisation and weight reduction of the new sensors are possible.

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