Religiosity and Misanthropy across the Racial and Ethnic Divide
Abstract
:Misanthropy develops when one puts complete trust in somebody, thinking the person to be absolutely true, sound, and reliable, only to later discover that the person is deceitful, untrustworthy and fake. And when this happens to someone often … they end up … hating everyone.––Attributed to Socrates in Plato’s Phaedo
1. Introduction
2. Background and Literature Review
2.1. Race, Ethnicity, and Misanthropy
2.2. Does Ethnic Diversity Erode Social Trust?
2.3. Are Blacks and Latinos Less Trusting (More Misanthropic) Than Whites?
2.4. Explanations for Why Blacks and Latinos Are Less Trusting (More Misanthropic) Than Whites
2.5. Religion and Misanthropy
2.5.1. Positive Association
2.5.2. Negative Association
2.6. Race, Ethnicity, Religiosity, and Misanthropy
3. Data and Methods
3.1. Dependent Variable
Misanthropy and Its Constituent Parts
3.2. Focal Predictors
3.2.1. Race/Ethnicity
3.2.2. Focal Predictors: Two Dimensions of Religiosity
3.2.3. Controls
4. Results
4.1. Descriptive Statistics: Mean Racial and Ethnic Differences in Key Variables
4.2. Ethnoracial Trends in Misanthropy
4.3. Multivariate Analysis: Net of Controls
4.3.1. Trust, Helpful, and Fair
4.3.2. Race, Ethnicity, Religiosity, and Misanthropy
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
1 | Another important track addresses why trust levels vary across countries and states (Berggren and Bjørnskov 2011; Delhey and Newton 2005; Uslaner and Brown 2005). |
2 | Although some Latinos might not be Hispanics (e.g., Brazilians), we use these terms interchangeably throughout this paper. |
3 | |
4 | There is, however, some dissent on this issue. Simpson et al. (2007) argue that prior studies employ a “standard trust measure” that is ill-equipped to properly capture racial variation in trust. Using an experimental design with university students as participants (98 Whites, 49 Blacks), the authors found evidence in support of their hypothesis that “trusting behavior will be higher within race categories than between race categories” (p. 531). However, their results, based on students from a single university, is not representative of the U.S. population. |
5 | In this context, it is important to recall that the American Civil Rights Movement grew out of and was sustained by the Black church. Indeed, many of the Civil Rights Movement’s high-profile leaders were pastors and preachers, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson, and later, Al Sharpton, to name a few. In addition, the foot soldiers of the movement were largely comprised of rank-and-file church congregants, but also students who came from religious households (see Dickerson 2005; Morris 2014; Harvey 2016). |
6 | We are aware that this procedure is a rudimentary approach to understanding the role of trust in the Bible, given that trust can be conveyed without actually using the word itself. However, the exercise does give us some insight into how Christians encounter the idea of trust in a biblical context. |
7 | It is important to highlight though that a central Christian tenet “to love others as we love ourselves,” is incongruent with misanthropy. |
8 | In Welch et al. (2007), religiosity was measured by activity in religious congregations, belief in absolute morality, frequency of prayer, and belief in the sinfulness of human nature. |
9 | This generalized measure has been widely used in social science research in the U.S. and cross-nationally, but it is not without its limitations (Delhey et al. 2011). Chief among them relates to how broad a circle survey respondents imagine when responding to the prompt “most people.” This is the so-called “radius of trust problem”(Delhey et al. 2011; Welch et al. 2007). Like others, we are assuming that our measure of misanthropy conjures a wide radius of people in the minds of respondents mainly because, according to (Delhey et al. 2011), “the radius of most people” in rich countries like the United States and non-Asian countries, tend to be wider than that found in poorer countries and countries with a Confucian background. |
10 | The “other” category was not included in the analysis given its small sample size and the fact that it is impossible to know what racial categories comprise the variable (e.g., Asian, Native American, Middle Eastern). The final sample only included respondents who were White, Black, or Latino. |
11 | For comparison purposes, we also conducted an analysis using the ethnic variable, and the results (not shown) were comparable. |
12 | Even though “Hispanic” is an ethnicity and not a race, given the small number of respondents who claimed to be Hispanic and Black (N = 153), we decided to look at all Hispanics irrespective of whether they self-classified as White, Black, or other. Out of 3549 Hispanic, 50.92% claimed to be White, 4.31% to be Black, and 44.35% to be “other” (the majority of which are likely to be “mixed” or “brown”). |
13 | Additional robustness tests examined belonging to a Christian denomination and found significant interactions for Blacks who are Lutherans, Hispanics who are Presbyterian, and other races who are Methodist and other denominations. However, the cell counts were too small to sustain meaningful analyses (e.g., fewer than 30 people who were Black and Lutheran). We also ran additional tests looking at religious organizations and belief in God, but the results failed to reach conventional levels of statistical significance. |
14 | Robustness tests were run treating attend as a continuous variable and the results were essentially the same. |
15 | Using Steensland et al. (2000) RELTRAD scheme, a set of dummy variables was created for Evangelical Protestant, Mainline Protestant, Black Protestant, and Catholic. Other robustness tests using just RELIG to create Protestant and Catholic dummy variables was also conducted and yield similar results. |
16 | Robustness tests were also run controlling for perceived religious affiliation strength (RELITEN) and the results were essentially the same. |
17 | As part of our supplemental analyses, we considered the individual elements that make up our composite measure of misanthropy, and tested the expectation that greater levels of religiosity among Blacks and Latinos will be associated with lower levels of trust in others, and a lower likelihood of viewing others as fair and helpful; and greater levels of religiosity among Whites will be associated with higher levels of trust in others and a greater likelihood of viewing others as fair and helpful. |
18 | Available upon request. |
19 | Belonging to a predominantly Black or predominantly Latino church could provide emotional and spiritual support for adherents amid daily struggles while simultaneously increasing misanthropy (aimed at the outside world) as a by-product. Unfortunately, the current dataset doesn’t allow us to explore this question directly, but we hope our research will inspire further inquiries into this important matter in the future. |
20 | As historian, sociologist, and commentator, Du Bois wrote extensively on the promise and perils of the black church. See The Souls of Black Folk, The Negro Church, Dusk of Dawn, and The Philadelphia Negro to name just a few sources. He is generally acknowledged to have been both supporter of the black church as a site for the social, political and economic elevation of blacks, but also a critic of the black church for not fully embracing its full potential as a force for social change (See Blum 2007; Savage 2000). |
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Obs | Total Mean | Black | White | Latino | Min. | Max. | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Dependent variables | |||||||
Misanthropy index | 14,142 | 2.065 (0.749) | 2.385 (0.646) | 1.950 (0.752) | 2.345 (0.657) | 1 | 3.041 |
Trust | 14,765 | 1.712 (0.929) | 1.363 (0.741) | 1.839 (0.958) | 1.395 (0.766) | 1 | 3 |
Helpful | 14,266 | 1.623 (0.639) | 1.746 (0.623) | 1.572 (0.642) | 1.768 (0.600) | 1 | 3 |
Fair | 14,221 | 2.109 (0.951) | 1.737 (0.919) | 2.23 (0.932) | 1.876 (0.942) | 1 | 3 |
Focal predictors | |||||||
Frequency of service attendance | 25,442 | 3.517 (2.78) | 4.37 (2.67) | 3.324 (2.79) | 3.61 (2.68) | 0 | 8 |
Frequency of prayer | 19,845 | 3.236 (1.729) | 4.0 (1.313) | 3.061 (1.782) | 3.313 (1.609) | 0 | 5 |
Control variables | |||||||
Real income in $1986, millions | 22,743 | 0.034 (0.034) | 0.022 (0.023) | 0.038 (0.036) | 0.025 (0.027) | 0.0002 | 0.1551 |
Marital status | 25,615 | 0.461 (0.498) | 0.273 (0.446) | 0.502 (0.500) | 0.446 (0.497) | 0 | 1 |
Age | 25,546 | 47.77 (17.44) | 44.49 (16.23) | 49.73 (17.65) | 40.19 (14.79) | 18 | 89 |
Age2 | 25,546 | 2586.47 (1794.8) | 2242.96 (1596.56) | 2785.04 (1850.37) | 1833.66 (1381.42) | 324 | 7921 |
Education | 25,577 | 13.464 (3.025) | 12.95 (2.75) | 13.85 (2.827) | 11.80 (3.74) | 0 | 20 |
Gender (male) | 25,633 | 0.445 (0.497) | 0.385 (0.487) | 0.457 (0.498) | 0.450 (0.498) | 0 | 1 |
U.S. nativity | 24,136 | 0.899 (0.302) | 0.919 (0.273) | 0.955 (0.207) | 0.535 (0.499) | 0 | 1 |
Urbanicity | 25,633 | 0.890 (0.312) | 0.922 (0.268) | 0.870 (0.336) | 0.969 (0.173) | 0 | 1 |
Conservative | 21,948 | 0.342 (0.474) | 0.242 (0.429) | 0.371 (0.483) | 0.289 (0.453) | 0 | 1 |
Liberal | 21,948 | 0.273 (0.445) | 0.316 (0.465) | 0.261 (0.439) | 0.292 (0.455) | 0 | 1 |
Unemployed | 25,617 | 0.040 (0.195) | 0.064 (0.244) | 0.032 (0.177) | 0.053 (0.224) | 0 | 1 |
Occupation prestige | 24,470 | 43.63 (13.16) | 40.46 (12.39) | 44.94 (13.20) | 39.45 (12.22) | 16 | 80 |
Region (South) | 25,633 | 0.381 (0.486) | 0.589 (0.492) | 0.341 (0.474) | 0.360 (0.480) | 0 | 1 |
Year of survey | 25,633 | 2008.502 (5.76) | 2008.78 (5.87) | 2008.23 (5.73) | 2009.74 (5.57) | 2000 | 2018 |
Religious Tradition | |||||||
Mainline Protestant | 25,633 | 0.146 (0.353) | 0.078 (0.268) | 0.182 (0.385) | 0.021 (0.143) | 0 | 1 |
Black Protestant | 25,633 | 0.197 (0.398) | 0.506 (0.500) | 0.159 (0.366) | 0.041 (0.199) | 0 | 1 |
Evangelical Protestant | 25,633 | 0.251 (0.433) | 0.469 (0.499) | 0.229 (0.420) | 0.109 (0.311) | 0 | 1 |
Catholic | 25,493 | 0.237 (0.425) | 0.061 (0.240) | 0.216 (0.411) | 0.584 (0.493) | 0 | 1 |
Theological Conservatism | |||||||
Fundamentalist | 24,641 | 2.031 (0.774) | 1.639 (0.7972) | 2.11 (0.779) | 2.04 (0.553) | 1 | 3 |
Bible | 20,553 | 2.125 (0.722) | 2.440 (0.683) | 2.044 (0.710) | 2.21 (0.725) | 1 | 3 |
VARIABLES | b1 | b2 | b3 |
---|---|---|---|
Ref: White | |||
Black | 0.219 *** | 0.214 *** | 0.094 *** |
Latino | 0.178 *** | 0.180 *** | 0.067 *** |
Attend | −0.095 *** | −0.116 *** | −0.082 *** |
Pray | 0.051 *** | 0.011 | |
Real income | −0.082 *** | ||
Catholic | −0.008 | ||
Mainline Protestant | −0.044 *** | ||
Black Protestant | 0.054 *** | ||
Evangelical Protestant | −0.025 | ||
Fundamentalist | −0.033 | ||
Bible | 0.052 *** | ||
Conservative | −0.005 | ||
Liberal | −0.044 *** | ||
Married | −0.043 *** | ||
Unemployed | 0.010 | ||
Occ Prestige | −0.057 *** | ||
Age | −0.185 *** | ||
Age2 | −0.007 | ||
Education | −0.169 *** | ||
Male | 0.013 | ||
Born US | −0.006 | ||
Urban | −0.010 | ||
South | 0.064 *** | ||
Constant | *** | *** | *** |
R-Squared | 0.0712 | 0.0733 | 0.1948 |
N | 14,004 | 13,049 | 10,443 |
Model 1 | Model 2 | Model 3 | |
---|---|---|---|
VARIABLES | Trust | Fair | Helpful |
Attend (ref: never) | |||
Less than once a year | 0.023 * | 0.012 | −0.008 |
About once or twice a year | 0.018 | 0.029 * | 0.014 |
Several times a year | 0.021 | 0.030 * | 0.027 * |
About once a month | 0.024 | 0.046 *** | 0.009 |
2–3 times a month | 0.038 ** | 0.048 *** | 0.037 ** |
Nearly every week | 0.020 | 0.047 *** | 0.029 * |
Every week | 0.101 *** | 0.105 *** | 0.061 *** |
Several times a week | 0.035 ** | 0.027 | 0.023 |
Race (ref: White) | |||
Black | −0.067 ** | −0.058 * | −0.023 |
Latino | −0.011 | −0.036 | −0.047 * |
Less than once a year*Black | 0.001 | −0.001 | 0.013 |
Less than once a year*Latino | −0.029 ** | 0.001 | 0.023 * |
About once or twice a year*Black | −0.012 | −0.012 | −0.008 |
About once or twice a year*Latino | −0.020 | −0.001 | 0.005 |
Several times a year*Black | 0.002 | −0.020 | −0.002 |
Several times a year*Latino | −0.022 * | −0.007 | −0.017 |
About once a month*Black | −0.002 | −0.018 | 0.007 |
About once a month*Latino | −0.025 * | −0.016 | 0.004 |
2–3 times a month*Black | −0.018 | −0.006 | −0.015 |
2–3 times a month*Latino | −0.024 * | 0.002 | 0.005 |
Nearly every week*Black | −0.003 | −0.010 | −0.012 |
Nearly every week*Latino | −0.005 | 0.006 | 0.012 |
Every week*Black | −0.037 ** | −0.031 | −0.028 |
Every week*Latino | −0.042 *** | −0.022 | −0.014 |
Several times a week*Black | −0.004 | 0.004 | 0.006 |
Several times a week*Latino | −0.018 | 0.016 | 0.006 |
Observations | 10,876 | 10,478 | 10,489 |
R-squared | 0.164 | 0.134 | 0.085 |
Constant | *** | *** | *** |
Year dummies and controls | Yes | Yes | Yes |
VARIABLES | White | Black | Latino |
---|---|---|---|
Attend (ref: never) | |||
Less than once a year | −0.015 | −0.011 | −0.013 |
About once or twice a year | 0.005 | −0.024 * | −0.021 |
Several times a year | 0.006 | −0.025 * | −0.027 * |
About once a month | −0.007 | −0.026 * | −0.029 ** |
2–3 times a month | −0.025 | −0.049 *** | −0.038 *** |
Nearly every week | −0.032 | −0.043 *** | −0.033 ** |
Every week | −0.016 | −0.100 *** | −0.093 *** |
Several times a week | −0.039 * | −0.035 ** | −0.035 ** |
White = 1 | −0.067 ** | ||
Less than once a year*White | 0.003 | ||
About once or twice a year*White | −0.028 | ||
Several times a year*White | −0.033 | ||
About once a month*White | −0.023 | ||
2–3 times a month*White | −0.023 | ||
Nearly every week*White | −0.008 | ||
Every week*White | −0.086 *** | ||
Several times a week*White | 0.002 | ||
Black = 1 | 0.057 ** | ||
Less than once a year*Black | −0.005 | ||
About once or twice a year*Black | 0.014 | ||
Several times a year*Black | 0.007 | ||
About once a month*Black | 0.002 | ||
2–3 times a month*Black | 0.014 | ||
Nearly every week*Black | 0.011 | ||
Every week*Black | 0.035 * | ||
Several times a week*Black | −0.003 | ||
Latino = 1 | 0.032 | ||
Less than once a year*Latino | 0.002 | ||
About once or twice a year*Latino | 0.005 | ||
Several times a year*Latino | 0.016 | ||
About once a month*Latino | 0.013 | ||
2–3 times a month*Latino | 0.000 | ||
Nearly every week*Latino | −0.010 | ||
Every week*Latino | 0.026 * | ||
Several times a week*Latino | −0.005 | ||
Observations | 10,455 | 10,455 | 10,443 |
R-squared | 0.197 | 0.193 | 0.190 |
Constant | *** | *** | *** |
Year dummies and controls | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Variables | OLS Coefficients (Misanthropy) | Beta (Misanthropy) |
---|---|---|
Attend (ref: never) | ||
Less than once a year | −0.033 | −0.011 |
About once or twice a year | −0.057 * | −0.026 * |
Several times a year | −0.076 * | −0.032 * |
About once a month | −0.106 ** | −0.035 ** |
2–3 times a month | −0.143 *** | −0.054 *** |
Nearly every week | −0.146 *** | −0.041 *** |
Every week | −0.227 *** | −0.115 *** |
Several times a week | −0.107 ** | −0.036 ** |
Race (ref: white) | ||
Black | 0.139 ** | 0.064 ** |
Latino | 0.097 * | 0.042 * |
Less than once a year*Black | −0.046 | −0.005 |
Less than once a year*Latino | 0.009 | 0.001 |
About once or twice a year*Black | 0.085 | 0.014 |
About once or twice a year*Latino | 0.039 | 0.007 |
Several times a year*Black | 0.058 | 0.009 |
Several times a year*Latino | 0.108 | 0.017 |
About once a month*Black | 0.040 | 0.005 |
About once a month*Latino | 0.110 | 0.015 |
2–3 times a month*Black | 0.082 | 0.016 |
2–3 times a month*Latino | 0.042 | 0.007 |
Nearly every week*Black | 0.078 | 0.010 |
Nearly every week*Latino | −0.066 | −0.007 |
Every week*Black | 0.179 ** | 0.040 ** |
Every week*Latino | 0.186 ** | 0.034 ** |
Several times a week*Black | −0.019 | −0.003 |
Several times a week*Latino | −0.023 | −0.003 |
Observations | 10,443 | 10,443 |
R-squared | 0.197 | 0.197 |
Constant | 3.201 *** | *** |
Year dummies and controls | Yes | Yes |
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Valente, R.R.; Smith, R.A. Religiosity and Misanthropy across the Racial and Ethnic Divide. Religions 2023, 14, 393. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030393
Valente RR, Smith RA. Religiosity and Misanthropy across the Racial and Ethnic Divide. Religions. 2023; 14(3):393. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030393
Chicago/Turabian StyleValente, Rubia R., and Ryan A. Smith. 2023. "Religiosity and Misanthropy across the Racial and Ethnic Divide" Religions 14, no. 3: 393. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14030393