Effects of Religiosity on Social Attitudes in 36 Countries

ABSTRACT

I have empirically studied the relationship between individual’s religiosity and his/her social attitudes for the last decade. The research findings have showed weak relationships between the two groups of variables(religiosity and social attitudes) in Korean samples. I have thought that it reflected the universal secularization trend or cultural specificity of Korea. Lack of empirical data for testing the hypotheses made hypothesis testing withheld. However, the data sets collected from 36 countries over the world(2008 General Social Survery) gave me an opportunity to empirically test the hypotheses. I tested the secularization hypothesis and the specificity hypothesis by correlation and multiple regression. The results supported the specificity hypothesis rather than the secularization hypothesis. That is, it is inferred that the weak relationship between individual’s religiosity and his/her social attitudes is due to our Korean(oriental) cultural specificity. The inference is based on the facts that one’s religiosity still strongly influences his/her social attitudes in most other countries. While the spatial dimension of secularization was partly rejected in this study, we still need longitudinal data for testing the temporal(historical) dimension of secularization.