This is interesting but ultimately I’m unconvinced that a mean score of 39 vs 43 converts to a meaningful difference in an actual life. We aren’t talking about skipping on edges of high buildings vs wearing helmets to garden here.
That being said the trend of sometimes attendees ranking lowest is true in other areas. I know that men who attend church rarely treat their wives more poorly while those with high attendance and nonattendance do much better. I think (and I’m less sure of remembering this) that there is a similar trend with child rearing as well. I guess what Jesus says is true, I wish you were hot or cold.
The blog of Yale Law School's Cultural Cognition Project under Dan Kahan seems to have shifted website hosting over the years, so I'm having trouble finding their wonderful "shoelace diagram" (not sure if they call them that, but that's sure what they look like!) posts on risk perception. I can, still, however, find some related content. What are WHIMs (White Hierarchical Individualist Males) afraid of? Plenty, if you know what to ask!:
For example, WHIMs are more afraid than average of "the risk that high tax rates for businesses poses to human health, safety, or prosperity", according to a survey that asked this – but many surveys of risk perception fail to ask such questions.
If I can turn up the "shoelace diagrams", I'll post 'em. What the diagrams showed is that WHIMs tend to be especially fearless about the fears academics are more likely to ask about, but especially fearful of stuff academics might not ask about. If academics don't, themselves, perceive taxes, marijuana, or, say, teenage insolence as threatening, academics might not include these threats on their surveys – and miss how threatening WHIMs claim to find these things. (I'm pretty sure "teenage insolence" wasn't a specific survey item, but WHIMs' fears seem related.) Here's an interesting paper by Kahan addressing the pitfall of "cognitive illiberalism" in conflicting risk perceptions:
"But when it comes to crime (being mugged, being sexually assaulted, etc.), there’s a strong curvilinear relationship" between worship attendance and fear.
People who sometimes attend religious services may have instability in their lives that makes regular attendance harder. Is it possible their neighborhoods, jobs, household and family situations expose them to more crime and abuse, meaning they're not psychologically more fearful, just responding rationally to their situation?
Overall this agrees with my limited observation. Deeply religious people truly trust God and don't fear much. They take risks (like driving too fast) that others won't The second mode for never-attenders is surprising. Maybe never-attenders are faithful atheists who trust Random in the same way that religious people trust God? Or they're just innately confident people who are certain about everything in life, so they're certain about their atheism?
- I wonder if there's something in the psychology of sometimes-attenders that's more driven by negative compulsion (e.g. guilt, fear, family pressure, etc...) than the weekly attenders (driven by faith or loyalty) or the never attenders (don't care either way). I wonder if there's enough data to cross-reference this by race.
- The fact that never-attenders are among the least afraid of political things seems really odd given the other kinds of analysis you've done about how Atheists are the most politically engaged. Perhaps the "nothing in particular" crowd swamps the Atheist fear profile.
- I'm also curious about the financial worries. Christianity in particular says a lot about not worrying about money. But why would never-attenders be less worried about money than sometimes-attenders?
- No real religious-specific fears such as demons or "the wrath of God" even made the list.
- Germs were near the bottom, which is really strange given the recent pandemic.
- I wish there was more granularity on what "corrupt government officials" in the U.S. might do that was frightening.
On money, I suspect never-attenders are educated and high status people, so money isn't a big problem for them. Sometimes attenders are more broadly distributed on wealth and status.
"But why would never-attenders be less worried about money than sometimes-attenders?"
One very obvious reason is that sometimes-attending is evidence of leading a life thwarted in some way.
If you never attend religious services, it's probably because you don't want to, and your desire not to is not being thwarted. If you infrequently attend, it could be because
1) You aspire to more-frequent attendance but fail for some reason (poor health, poor habits, poor household organization / weak support network, low-status job with unpredictable hours, etc). Your religious impulses are thwarted by some kind of precarity (whether self- or circumstance-imposed). And precarity leaves you more-or-less *rationally* more worried about money.
2) You aspire to attend less often, maybe never, but some sense of obligation to others in your life thwarts this aspiration – I suspect #2 here is less important than #1 and becomes increasingly less important the more religion is seen as optional to ordinary life. Anyhow, with increased wealth comes increased "FU money" – increased ability to abandon disagreeable social obligations simply because you find them disagreeable. People who find religious attendance disagreeable but nonetheless attend – as little as they can get away with, probably – may lack "FU money".
That top line list is horrendous. I've shifted from very religious to not religious in my life, my fear level went way down. But the things I was fearful of are not on that list of fears.
The framing of these kinds of surveys is always interesting. Just because people use the word "fear" in a political context does not make it a direct analog to the biblical use of the term. It seems like there is an assumed bias in the questions that Christians who may be "fearful" of crime are somehow not really trusting in God. Maybe religious people are more "fearful" because they love their neighbor and don't want to see people hurt by criminals. So how does the survey language account for people, like myself, who would say I'm not "fearful" of any of these issues, but do have genuine concerns?
This is interesting but ultimately I’m unconvinced that a mean score of 39 vs 43 converts to a meaningful difference in an actual life. We aren’t talking about skipping on edges of high buildings vs wearing helmets to garden here.
That being said the trend of sometimes attendees ranking lowest is true in other areas. I know that men who attend church rarely treat their wives more poorly while those with high attendance and nonattendance do much better. I think (and I’m less sure of remembering this) that there is a similar trend with child rearing as well. I guess what Jesus says is true, I wish you were hot or cold.
Once again, thanks to the Lilly Endowment for making this post public.
The blog of Yale Law School's Cultural Cognition Project under Dan Kahan seems to have shifted website hosting over the years, so I'm having trouble finding their wonderful "shoelace diagram" (not sure if they call them that, but that's sure what they look like!) posts on risk perception. I can, still, however, find some related content. What are WHIMs (White Hierarchical Individualist Males) afraid of? Plenty, if you know what to ask!:
https://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2012/10/7/checking-in-on-the-white-male-effect-for-risk-perception.html
For example, WHIMs are more afraid than average of "the risk that high tax rates for businesses poses to human health, safety, or prosperity", according to a survey that asked this – but many surveys of risk perception fail to ask such questions.
If I can turn up the "shoelace diagrams", I'll post 'em. What the diagrams showed is that WHIMs tend to be especially fearless about the fears academics are more likely to ask about, but especially fearful of stuff academics might not ask about. If academics don't, themselves, perceive taxes, marijuana, or, say, teenage insolence as threatening, academics might not include these threats on their surveys – and miss how threatening WHIMs claim to find these things. (I'm pretty sure "teenage insolence" wasn't a specific survey item, but WHIMs' fears seem related.) Here's an interesting paper by Kahan addressing the pitfall of "cognitive illiberalism" in conflicting risk perceptions:
http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2010/04/Kahan.pdf
"But when it comes to crime (being mugged, being sexually assaulted, etc.), there’s a strong curvilinear relationship" between worship attendance and fear.
People who sometimes attend religious services may have instability in their lives that makes regular attendance harder. Is it possible their neighborhoods, jobs, household and family situations expose them to more crime and abuse, meaning they're not psychologically more fearful, just responding rationally to their situation?
I've flagged your links and am looking forwards to reading them. Thanks!
Overall this agrees with my limited observation. Deeply religious people truly trust God and don't fear much. They take risks (like driving too fast) that others won't The second mode for never-attenders is surprising. Maybe never-attenders are faithful atheists who trust Random in the same way that religious people trust God? Or they're just innately confident people who are certain about everything in life, so they're certain about their atheism?
Great data! Lots of surprises here.
- I wonder if there's something in the psychology of sometimes-attenders that's more driven by negative compulsion (e.g. guilt, fear, family pressure, etc...) than the weekly attenders (driven by faith or loyalty) or the never attenders (don't care either way). I wonder if there's enough data to cross-reference this by race.
- The fact that never-attenders are among the least afraid of political things seems really odd given the other kinds of analysis you've done about how Atheists are the most politically engaged. Perhaps the "nothing in particular" crowd swamps the Atheist fear profile.
- I'm also curious about the financial worries. Christianity in particular says a lot about not worrying about money. But why would never-attenders be less worried about money than sometimes-attenders?
- No real religious-specific fears such as demons or "the wrath of God" even made the list.
- Germs were near the bottom, which is really strange given the recent pandemic.
- I wish there was more granularity on what "corrupt government officials" in the U.S. might do that was frightening.
On money, I suspect never-attenders are educated and high status people, so money isn't a big problem for them. Sometimes attenders are more broadly distributed on wealth and status.
"But why would never-attenders be less worried about money than sometimes-attenders?"
One very obvious reason is that sometimes-attending is evidence of leading a life thwarted in some way.
If you never attend religious services, it's probably because you don't want to, and your desire not to is not being thwarted. If you infrequently attend, it could be because
1) You aspire to more-frequent attendance but fail for some reason (poor health, poor habits, poor household organization / weak support network, low-status job with unpredictable hours, etc). Your religious impulses are thwarted by some kind of precarity (whether self- or circumstance-imposed). And precarity leaves you more-or-less *rationally* more worried about money.
2) You aspire to attend less often, maybe never, but some sense of obligation to others in your life thwarts this aspiration – I suspect #2 here is less important than #1 and becomes increasingly less important the more religion is seen as optional to ordinary life. Anyhow, with increased wealth comes increased "FU money" – increased ability to abandon disagreeable social obligations simply because you find them disagreeable. People who find religious attendance disagreeable but nonetheless attend – as little as they can get away with, probably – may lack "FU money".
Very interesting. Your response seems like a longer, more-thoughtful version of my first comment.
Hearing you, now I'd be interested in seeing attendance rates cross-referenced by other factors like income, wealth, life satisfaction, etc...
That top line list is horrendous. I've shifted from very religious to not religious in my life, my fear level went way down. But the things I was fearful of are not on that list of fears.
RE: change in fear level: Could that have happened because you stopped hanging out in a "fear" bubble????
Not a snark question....a real one.
Horrendous how?
Song lyrics posted without comment.
All of your life
Guided by truth
Right from the start
Then one twist of fate
In the blink of an eye
And it all falls apart
What happens then
When all that you knew
Just fades away?
When you've lost all control
You broke from your soul
And fear has its day?
Will you make the right choice in that moment?
Will you stand and be brave or be broken?
We live in fear that we might fail
Fear that we'll succeed
Fear that we may not provide
The things our loved ones need
But our greatest fear will be realized
If we fall and lose ourselves to fear
We've become what we feared all our lives
Who will you see?
There in the darkness
When no one is watching
Who will you be?
When you're afraid
And everything changes
Will you see a stranger?
Feel proud or betrayed?
"Fear" by Casey Lee Williams
RWBY Volume 9 Soundtrack
The Dem/Rep split is fascinating! Any theories about that?
Such an interesting data set.
I’m curious: Would you be willing to filter fears specifically among people who say faith is very important to them but they don’t attend church?
Is there even a way to do that?
The framing of these kinds of surveys is always interesting. Just because people use the word "fear" in a political context does not make it a direct analog to the biblical use of the term. It seems like there is an assumed bias in the questions that Christians who may be "fearful" of crime are somehow not really trusting in God. Maybe religious people are more "fearful" because they love their neighbor and don't want to see people hurt by criminals. So how does the survey language account for people, like myself, who would say I'm not "fearful" of any of these issues, but do have genuine concerns?