DOI: 10.17608/k6.auckland.2000934.v1
title: ISSP1998: Religion II

description: The eighth of 20 years of successful surveys for the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) in New Zealand, run by Professor Philip Gendall in the Department of Marketing at Massey University.ISSP is a continuing annual programme of cross-national collaboration on surveys covering topics important for social science research. It brings together pre-existing social science projects and coordinates research goals, thereby adding a cross-national, cross-cultural perspective to the individual national studies. ISSP researchers especially concentrate on developing questions that are meaningful and relevant to all countries, and can be expressed in an equivalent manner in all relevant languages.Selection was via systematic random sampling of the electoral rolls.A verbose rundown on topics covered follows.Attitudes towards religious practices. Assessment of personal happiness; assessment of the responsibility of the government regarding creation of jobs and equalization of incomes; attitude to pre-marital as well as extra-marital sexual intercourse; attitude to homosexuality and abortion; judgement on distribution of roles in marriage and attitude to working women; attitude to living together with a partner before marriage and also without intent to marry; tax honesty and attitude to honesty of citizens towards the government; trust in other people as well as institutions such as parliament, businesses, industry, churches, judiciary and schools.Attitude to influence of church leaders on voters and governments; attitude to benefit of modern science; greater trust in science than in religion; more conflicts instead of peace from religions; intolerance of very religious people; too much influence of religion in one’s country; frequency of personal honorary activities in the last year in political, charitable, religious or other organisations; judgement on the power of churches and religious organisations; doubt or firm belief in God; perceived nearness to God; belief in a life after death, heaven, hell and miracles.Attitude to the Bible; God is concerned with every human; fatalism; the meaning of life and Christian interpretation of life; religious tie at a turning point in life; religious affiliation of father, mother and spouse/partner; frequency of church attendance of father and mother; personal direction of belief and frequency of church attendance when young; frequency of prayer and participation in religious activities; self-classification of personal religiousness; truth in one or in all religions; priority for loyalty to a friend before truth; anticipation of false testimony for the benefit of a friend; belief in lucky charms, fortune tellers, miracle healers and horoscopes; conversion of faith after crucial experience; concept of God; judgement on the world and people as good or bad; social rules or God’s laws as basis for deciding between right and wrong.Demography: sex; age, marital status; living together with a partner; school education; type and time extent of occupation activity; occupation (ISCO-Code); private or public employer; occupational self-employment and number of employees; supervisor function and span of control; time worked each week; income; household size; composition of household; number of co-workers; union membership; party inclination and election behaviour; self-classification on a left-right continuum; religious affiliation; frequency of church attendance; self-classification of social class.Also encoded were: region; rural or urban area; city size; ethnic identification.