Research On Religion » public opinion

Jeremy Castle on Religion and Voting Behavior

tonygill — Sun, 25 Jun 2017 08:00:49 +0000

How do American voters react when candidates prompt them with religious cues? Dr. Jeremiah (Jeremy) Castle, an assistant professor at Central Michigan University, discusses a recent study he conducted with his colleagues regarding how religious cues and prompts affect opinions towards various candidates. We start the discussion with Prof. Castle’s dissertation work on young evangelical Christians and whether they are becoming more liberal/progressive in their political views. It turns out, that Millennial evangelicals are not becoming more liberal when you examine those who are actively involved in their church. Younger Christians who are peripherally involved in their faith do show a leftward drift, though. Moving on to a recent article published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, we pick up the topic of whether or not voters are influenced by how a candidate is presented to them in media (e.g., voter pamphlets). Jeremy reviews the extant literature on why people vote the way they do, noting that partisan affiliation is — not surprisingly — the primary factor determining how one views, and votes for, a partisan candidate. The question moves back one step to explain what determines party affiliation and Prof. Castle notes that a number of factors condition this, including race, income, education, and religion. The interesting phenomenon that social scientists have observed over the past few decades, though, is a shift away from denominational affiliation (e.g., Presbyterian, Catholic) and party identity, to one that is based more upon religious intensity. Christians, irrespective of denomination, who are more active in their faith subculture tend to be conservative and Republican in their political identity, whereas less active and secular individuals lean Democrat and liberal. (There are some exceptions including Jews and black Protestants who still largely vote Democrat.) Jeremy then details the survey experiment he conducted with David Campbell, Geoffrey Layman, and John Green wherein they created a “generic” candidate and manipulated how that candidate was presented to individuals. Some test subjects received a moderate religious prompt, others a strong religious prompt, a third group received a secular prompt, and of course there was a control group that did not have any religious/secular identifying characteristics. Jeremy reveals that the strong religious prompt tended to improve the favorability of candidates amongst individuals who identified as strongly religious, and secular prompts tended to reduce the candidates favorability amongst this group. He shares a number of other interesting observations from this study as well. The topic of religious voting during the 2016 presidential election comes up at this point and Prof. Castle notes that some of the trends within Donald Trump’s rhetoric matches with the theoretical expectations of the hypotheses he was testing. We then shift gears to discuss some of Jeremy’s other work on whether or not political messages in movies have an impact on public opinion and he covers an experimental study he did on Notre Dame students exposed to three different films and their attitudes towards health care reform conducted several years ago. He finds that strong political messages in movies do shift attitudes immediately following the viewing of the film and several weeks later. Jeremy closes out with some observations on what he has learned in his young career as an academic. Recorded: June 12, 2017.

Frank Newport on Survey Research and American Religiosity (Encore Presentation)

tonygill — Sun, 16 Oct 2016 08:00:30 +0000

Due to illness and windstorms, the staff at RoR is taking a short break. In the meantime, here is a conversation from three years ago regarding survey research, a still-timely episode given all the polling data we are hearing on a daily basis. Enjoy and know that we will be back with crescent fresh episodes soon, including some spooky stuff for Halloween.

Dr. Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll and author of the new book God Is Alive and Well, joins us to talk about how survey research is conducted and what polls have been telling us about the changing religiosity of the American people. The first half of our discussion devotes attention to the issue of polling methodology, specifically as it relates to phone surveys. While many folks see poll results reported on the evening news, few people understand the underlying procedures that produce these results. We talk about several issues that may affect the results of surveys, including non-response bias, the drop in response rates, the increased usage of cell phones and how that affects how people answer questions, strategic answering of questions in a socially-acceptable manner, and interview interaction. Dr. Newport notes that all of these issues are known to his profession and a great deal of effort is made to overcome the various problems associated with these potentially-biasing factors.

The discussion then shifts to the issue of America’s religiosity. We begin with the topic that has been capturing everybody’s attention over the past decade — the increase in “religious nones” (i.e., those people who state that they have no religious affiliation). Frank confirms that there has been a significant rise in the number of people who are not religiously affiliated based upon a standard set of questions that pollsters have been asking over time. However, what this increase means might not be obviously clear. While some scholars have jumped on these results as proof that America is becoming less religious, Dr. Newport has a different take on the matter. We xplore who the “nones” are and Frank notes that the increased prevalence of “nones” tend to be correlated with the demographics of individuals who have always tended to be less religious than in the past — e.g., younger individuals, men, singles, and people in certain parts of the nation. Tony advances a hypothesis that the trend in delayed marriages and fertility over the past twenty years has had an impact on people avoiding religious services in the earlier part of their life, which Dr. Newport confirms. Frank also notes that “nones” are not necessarily atheists or agnostic. Instead, he lays out the idea that there is more “truth in reporting” in surveys as compared with the past; people feel freer today to say they don’t attend church or are unaffiliated with a faith than in the past. This gets us into a brief discussion of achieved versus ascribed characteristics, and that religious affiliation has moved from being an ascribed characteristic to an achieved characteristic. This seems to be confirmed with the tendency that Protestants — who are more fluid in their religious affiliations — are the ones who are most likely to become “nones.”

The interview continues along other paths including an exploration to the rise of non-denominational churches and religious pluralism. We also examine the issue of church growth and Dr. Newport gives his ideas about how and why some churches grow and others do not. Fertility is quite obviously associated with church growth and there are certain denominations, namely the mainline Protestants, that have fewer children. Immigration is also discussed. The other factor that Frank raises is that of “religious marketing.” Churches that focus on marketing their faith so as to bring people into the pews do better at attracting members, not surprisingly. (Tony notes that comfortable chairs and coffee are an important part of that marketing campaign.) We finish the interview with Frank’s thoughts on how the clergy can use modern survey research to better serve their missions. Recorded: August 1, 2013.

Frank Newport on Survey Research and America’s Religiosity

tonygill — Sun, 11 Aug 2013 08:00:36 +0000

Louis Bolce on the Media and Anti-Fundamentalism

tonygill — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 09:00:56 +0000

Building upon previous podcasts on religion & politics and Christian stereotypes, Louis Bolce — associate professor of political science at Baruch College, City University of New York — examines how the news media shapes and informs elite opinion towards Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals. Based upon a number of research papers co-authored with his colleague Gerald De Maio, Prof. Bolce discusses the growth of a “religious gap” among voters over the past several decades. This gap has been much more salient than the “gender gap ” even though the latter has been reported on more widely since the early 1990s. Prof. Bolce reveals that a content analysis of the New York Times and Washington Post shows the media only noticing this “religious gap” in any significant way beginning with the 2004 presidential election. Using that uptick in media coverage, Louis Bolce shows how media portrayals of “values voters” (largely identified as Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals) influence individuals who are most likely to read the newspaper and pay attention to politics. In general, the image of Christian fundamentalists is that they are overwhelmingly intolerant toward others. Contrary to the that stereotypical image, Prof. Bolce’s research shows that Christian fundamentalists actually show significantly “warmer” (more positive) attitudes towards Jews and minority groups on “attitude thermometers” than those groups show towards fundamentalists. We discuss how the elite opinion is shaped by media coverage and why it tends to affect those most attentive to the news media. Recorded: January 17, 2011.

RELATED SITES

Prof. Louis Bolce’s website at Baruch College.

Seigal Report on the New York Times, “Preserving Our Readers’ Trust.”

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Brad R.W. Wright on Christian Stereotypes.

Jon Shields on Democratic Virtues and the Christian Right.

David Brody on the 2010 Elections and Religious Journalism.

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