Religions grow in tighter (vs. looser) cultures: Two studies of inter & intra-country data

Abstract

Religious affiliations and non-affiliations in society can grow through personality ? environment correlation and interaction. In Study 1, mixed-effects analyses of moderated mediation conducted on online data collected from 111 countries (N = 4,270) showed that personality factors could predict religious affiliations growing faster in tighter (vs. looser) countries between the years 2000 and 2015. Through a multi-level SEM analysis of serial mediation, Study 2 investigated the survey responses of a random sample (N = 4,963) recruited through random digit dialing from the U.S. population. Results showed that personality could anticipate preferences to live in a relatively looser (vs. tighter) country region with a higher religious non-affiliation rate by first predicting identification with the religious ingroup and then religiosity. The results have implications for showing culture and personality?s impact on religions? population growth, religiosity, and religious ingroup identification, sometimes independently of religious affiliation/non-affiliation self-reports.