between 45 and 54, and 20% over 55. National and religious demographics are summarized in 1. The BBC commissioned a British polling agency, ICM Associates, to partner with professional polling agencies in each country surveyed to conduct either telephone or face-to-face interviews with participants. ICM selected participants in all countries to be representative of either the national population or the population of the country’s most populous major metropolitan areas. Materials and measures. We converted all BBC survey measures of variables into binary form for ease of analysis by binary logistic regression, as the existing measures were not clearly ordinal, and bimodal distributions were common. We also wished to maintain consistency with previous research using this sample (Ginges et al., 2009). Ginges and colleagues had also converted the variables into binary form, and for the same reasons. For instance, in the dataset, the question “Do you believe in God?” had a number of possible responses. We dummy coded “I have always believed in God” or “I believe in God but have not always”—the only definitively affirmative 1 and all other responses as 0. Additional binary coding details can be found in our descriptions of the relevant variables below. Four of the key “religious” variables for the analysis were on Atran and Norenzayan’s (2004) taxonomy of the relatively universal features of religion: counterintuition, commitment, communion and compassion. Their taxonomy identified four broad features that distinguish religious worldviews from nonreligious or less religious ones. “Counterintuition” is belief in supernatural agents that violate intuitive principles of folk epistemology. “Commitment” is a willingness to sacrifice on behalf of
Table 2 Correlations among religiosity, conservatism, oppression, militarization, and HDI, Study 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. Development Index (HDI) (177) -.54*** (176) -.35*** (170) -.08 (150) .33*** (160) -.34*** (10068) -.32*** (10068) 2. Lack of liberty (oppression) (194) .47*** (176) .37*** (153) .24** (166) .17*** (10068) .29*** (10068) 3. Refugees from country (oppression) (177) .34*** (148) .13 (160) .17*** (10068) .23*** (10068) 4. Mil. spending/GDP (militarization) (153) .58*** (151) -.23*** -.10*** (10068) 5. Armed forces/capita (militarization) (166) -.35*** -.13*** (10068) 6. Religiosity index (religiosity) (10068) .54*** (10068) 7. Exclusivity item (conservatism) (10068) Note. n for each analysis is in parentheses. * p < .05 ** p < .01 *** p < .001.
3 Standardized regression coefficients (β) of the relationship of nation (ranked by predictors) to religiosity and exclusivity indices, with errors for β in parentheses, Study 1 Criterion Regression Predictor Lack of liberty Refugees Military spending Armed forces Religiosity Controlling for Development Index (HDI) -.33 (.016) -.20 (014) -.13 (.010) -.24 (.011) Controlling for HDI, demographics, exclusivity -.37 (.014) -.18 (.013) -.13 (.009) -.28 (.010) Exclusivity Controlling for Human Development Index (HDI) .09 (.016) -.03 (.014)a .01 (.010)b .09 (.012) Controlling for HDI, demographics, religiosity .26 (.015) .06 (.013) .06 (.009) .20 (.010) Note. All coefficients were significant at p < .001, unless otherwise indicated. a p < .05 b p > .05, ns. The statistical significance of the relationship between exclusivity and refugees (a) is eliminated once making a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Unstandardized coefficients (b) and 95% confidence intervals for b are available from the authors on request. Minimum residual degrees of freedom in all analyses = 9631.
Figure Caption Figure 1. Relationship of liberty and political rights to religiosity, all countries of Study 1. Figure 2. Relationship of refugees originating from a country to religiosity, all countries of Study 1. Figure 3. Relationship of civil liberty and political rights to religiosity, all countries of Study 2. Figure 4. Relationship of refugees originating from a country to religiosity, all countries of Study 2. Figure 5. Effect of experimental condition on support for oppression-militarization (Study 3).