The second tries to explain Optimism in terms of variables associated with Religiosity. In addition, the second set of analyses asks whether differences between the categories remain after we take religiosity into account. The means and standard deviations of the three religious groups are given below. From these means it is clear that Fundamentalists exhibit a higher level of Optimism than do Moderates, who, in turn are more optimistic that liberals. I chose to run Bonferroni tests among the three group means to illustrate the result.
All differences are significant.
These analyses are shown below. A Newman-Keuls test would also have been appropriate, and would also hold the maximum familywise error rate at differences. The Bonferroni printout is somewhat different from what we obtain with range tests such as the Newman-Keuls and Tukey. Notice that the pattern of differences tells us that Fundamentalists are more optimistic that Moderates, who are in turn more optimistic that Liberals. These results support the hypothesis that greater religious fundamentalism is associated with a more optimistic view of life.