scholarly journals Seeing is Believing: Religious Media Consumption and Public Opinion toward Same-Sex Relationships

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Perry ◽  
Landon Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Media Consumption ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Life Study ◽  
Religious Media ◽  
Practice Preference

An extensive literature demonstrates that religion is a key determinant of Americans’ social and political attitudes. This literature, however, has neglected an important measure of everyday religious practice, preference, and socialization: religious media consumption. We take a key social issue where attitudes have been shown to be largely shaped by religion—same-sex relationships—as an example to determine whether religious media consumption predicts social attitudes net of the measures typically included in the literature on religion and attitudes: affiliation, practice, and literalism. We draw on data from three national surveys, each of which contains different measures of religious media consumption and attitudes toward various same-sex relationships: the 1998 General Social Survey, 2005 Baylor Religion Survey, and 2012 Portraits of American Life Study. Both multivariate and propensity score matching analyses demonstrate that religious media consumption independently predicts lower support for same-sex relationships in all three surveys. We propose that religious media consumption is a key measure of religious practice, preference, and socialization that shapes Americans’ views toward social issues through both direct messages and by fortifying subcultural boundaries.

scholarly journals Seeing Is Believing: Religious Media Consumption and Public Opinion toward Same-sex Relationships

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 462-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel L. Perry ◽  
Landon Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
Social Issues ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Media Consumption ◽  
Extensive Literature ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Life Study ◽  
Religious Media ◽  
Practice Preference

An extensive literature demonstrates that religion is a key determinant of Americans’ social and political attitudes. This literature, however, has neglected an important measure of everyday religious practice, preference, and socialization: religious media consumption. We take a key social issue where attitudes have been shown to be largely shaped by religion—same-sex relationships—as an example to determine whether religious media consumption predicts social attitudes net of the measures typically included in the literature on religion and attitudes: affiliation, practice, and literalism. We draw on data from three national surveys, each of which contains different measures of religious media consumption and attitudes toward various same-sex relationships: the 1998 General Social Survey, 2005 Baylor Religion Survey, and 2012 Portraits of American Life Study. Both multivariate and propensity score matching analyses demonstrate that religious media consumption independently predicts lower support for same-sex relationships in all three surveys. We propose that religious media consumption is a key measure of religious practice, preference, and socialization that shapes Americans’ views toward social issues through both direct messages and by fortifying subcultural boundaries.

scholarly journals Attitudinal Change, Cohort Replacement, and the Liberalization of Attitudes about Same-sex Relationships, 1973–2018

2021 ◽  
pp. 073112142199485
Author(s):  
Ashley Wendell Kranjac ◽  
Robert L. Wagmiller
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Individual Change ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Population Turnover ◽  
Demographic Processes ◽  
Lesbian And Gay Rights ◽  
Using Data

Americans’ attitudes toward same-sex relationships have liberalized considerably over the last 40 years. We examine how the demographic processes generating social change in attitudes toward same-sex relationships changed over time. Using data from the 1973 to 2018 General Social Survey and decomposition techniques, we estimate the relative contributions of intracohort change and cohort replacement to overall social change for three different periods. We examine (1) the period prior to the rapid increase in attitude liberalization toward same-sex marriage rights (1973–1991), (2) the period of contentious debate about same-sex marriage and lesbian and gay rights (1991–2002), and (3) the period of legislative and judicial liberalization at the state and federal levels (2002–2018). We find that both intracohort and intercohort change played positive and significant roles in the liberalization of attitudes toward same-sex relationships in the postlegalization period, but that individual change was more important than population turnover over this period.

Prayer and Helping

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane Sharp
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Symbolic Interaction ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Sociodemographic Factors ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
The Past ◽  
Using Data

I propose a theoretical framework to understand how the religious practice of prayer influences helping. Drawing on work from symbolic interaction and cognitive psychology, I argue that individuals’ concepts of divine others become more cognitively accessible during the act of prayer. Because most people attribute the characteristics of omniscience and the desire for humans to help others to divine others, people are more likely to help known and unknown others the more cognitively accessible divine other concepts are to them. This leads to the prediction that frequency of prayer will be positively and linearly associated with frequency of helping. Using data from the General Social Survey (GSS), I find support for my argument. Frequency of prayer is positively and linearly associated with the frequency in which individuals engaged in several helpful behaviors toward known and unknown others in the past year, even after accounting for other religious and sociodemographic factors.

scholarly journals Wage differentials of males and females in same-sex and different-sex couples in Canada, 2006–2010

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Mueller
Keyword(s):  
Wage Differentials ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Heterosexual Relationships ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Gay Couples ◽  
Same Sex Couples ◽  
Males And Females

This paper utilizes five cycles of the General Social Survey in consecutive years from 2006 through 2010 to address the issue of differential wages amongst members of same-sex couples compared to their counterparts in different-sex couples. We find that men in gay couples have wages that are statistically indistinguishable from those of males in heterosexual relationships. By contrast, a sizeable and statistically significant earnings premium exists for lesbians in same-sex couples.

The Importance of Public Meaning for Political Persuasion

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deva Woodly
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
The Political ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Criteria ◽  
Political Persuasion

There have been many retrospective analyses written about the marriage-equality movement since the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling that made marriages between people of the same sex legal in all 50 states. Most attribute that triumph to a stunningly swift turnaround in public comfort with and approval of same-sex relationships. However, public opinion data indicates that this narrative is inaccurate. In 2015, 51% of General Social Survey respondents declared that they found sexual relationships between people of the same sex to be “wrong” at least “some of the time.” Nevertheless, at the same time, 56% of respondents affirmed that people of the same sex ought to have the legal right to marry. This dissonance suggests that the most common narrative about the success of the movement misses something crucial about how political persuasion happened in this case, as well as the way that political persuasion happens in general. In this article, I show that the massive shift in support for same-sex marriage was likely not the result of large majorities changing their underlying attitudes regarding gay sexual relationships, but was instead the result of activists inserting new criteria for evaluating same-sex marriage into popular political discourse by consistently using resonant arguments. These arguments reframed the political stakes, changed the public meaning of the marriage debate, and altered the decisional context in which people determine their policy preferences.

scholarly journals Should Mary and Jane Be Legal? Americans' Attitudes toward Marijuana and Same-Sex Marriage Legalization, 1988-2014

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Landon Schnabel
Keyword(s):  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Marijuana Legalization ◽  
The Government ◽  
Precipitous Decline

Marijuana and same-sex marriage are two of the fastest changing and most widely debated opinion and policy issues in the United States. Previous research has examined public opinion on marijuana legalization and same-sex marriage legalization individually, but has neglected to examine these two issues together. We use General Social Survey data from 1988 to 2014 to compare four groups: (1) those who support neither, (2) those who support marijuana but not same-sex marriage legalization, (3) those who support marriage but not marijuana legalization, and (4) those who support both. This study provides four key findings: (1) marijuana and same-sex marriage attitudes have changed simultaneously; (2) most people hold these attitudes in tandem, and there has been a precipitous decline in the percentage of people who support legalizing neither and a remarkable increase in the percentage who support legalizing both; (3) attitudes toward both issues are liberalizing across all social and ideological groups, suggesting a society-wide redefinition of both behaviors as publicly accepted issues of individual autonomy; (4) the support bases for marijuana and marriage legalization vary systematically by sociodemographic characteristics. We conclude that notions of individual autonomy may be increasingly important to the American public and their beliefs about what the government should regulate.

scholarly journals Homosexuality, Religion, and the Family: The Effects of Religion on Americans’ Appraisals of the Parenting Abilities of Same-Sex Couples

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew L Whitehead
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Multivariate Analyses ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
The United States ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Same Sex Couples ◽  
The Family ◽  
Nationally Representative

While a growing body of research focuses on Americans’ attitudes toward same-sex couples as parents, very few include measures of religion and those that do fail to capture its multidimensional nature. Furthermore, many past studies rely on convenience samples of college students, or samples gathered outside the United States. Multivariate analyses of the 2012 General Social Survey – a nationally representative sample of adults in the United States – reveal that a slim majority of Americans still do not believe same-sex couples can parent as well as male-female couples and the religious beliefs, behaviors, and affiliations of Americans are significantly and at times differentially associated with appraisals of same-sex couples’ parenting abilities. It appears that while religion is generally associated with more negative appraisals of the parenting abilities of same-sex couples, it is not uniformly so. Americans’ immediate religious and cultural context can shape their appraisals of homosexuality in diverse ways.

Unpacking the Roles of Religion and Partisanship on Support for Same-Sex Marriage: Evidence from South Korea

2020 ◽  
pp. 002190962091839
Author(s):  
Timothy S Rich ◽  
Andi Dahmer ◽  
Isabel Eliassen
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Same Sex Marriage ◽  
Ideological Influence

We ask to what extent opposition to same-sex marriage in South Korea is driven by Protestant identification and how this differs from Catholic and non-Christian views. Furthermore, is there a separate demographic, partisan or ideological influence beyond that captured by religious identity? Analysis of the 2016 Korean General Social Survey (KGSS) data finds not only clear perceptual distinctions between Protestants versus Buddhists and Catholics, but that partisan distinctions endure, even after controlling for the more popular non-LGBT-specific anti-discrimination legislation. In addition, younger and female respondents were more supportive of legalization, while education did not have the same effect as in the broader LGBT literature.

scholarly journals Gay Acquaintanceship and Attitudes toward Homosexuality: A Conservative Test

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 237802311879895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel DellaPosta
Keyword(s):  
Panel Data ◽  
Social Influence ◽  
Gay Rights ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
Contact Hypothesis ◽  
Social Selection ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Attitudes Toward Homosexuality ◽  
Same Sex Marriage

Does acquaintanceship with gays and lesbians produce more accepting attitudes toward homosexuality and gay rights? Although most scholars and laypeople would likely answer in the affirmative, previous work has struggled to answer this question because of the difficulty in disentangling social influence from social selection. Using panel data from the 2006 to 2010 editions of the General Social Survey, this study provides a conservative test of the contact hypothesis for gay acceptance. People who had at least one gay or lesbian acquaintance at baseline exhibited larger attitude changes at two- and four-year follow-ups with regard to support for same-sex marriage and moral acceptance of homosexuality. Furthermore, this contact effect extended even, and perhaps especially, to people who otherwise displayed more negative prior attitudes and lower propensities for gay and lesbian acquaintanceship.

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