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The Role of Social Factors in the Acquisition of Religious Beliefs
Brian Johnson
Lycoming College
December 10, 2007
ABSTRACT
This study utilizes qualitative interview and data analysis techniques to investigate how the social context and mode of transmission of religious concepts influence the process by which those concepts are accepted by individuals and intrapsychically transformed into beliefs. Five members of Christian church congregations in the Williamsport, Pennsylvania area were interviewed concerning their personal histories of religious belief. Findings largely support several existing theoretical models of the social and cognitive determinants of religious belief acquisition, but also suggest that it may be appropriate to accord greater salience to some particular aspects of those theories. Possible implications of this theoretical framework for cross-cultural interactions are also addressed.
INTRODUCTION
For many people, deeply held religious beliefs are instrumental in guiding their decision-making in regard to numerous consequential domains, from politics and finances, to romance, to matters of life and death. In order to enter into a meaningful dialogue with religious individuals or groups concerning issues in these areas, it is necessary to understand not only what they believe, but also the factors that inform their beliefs; failure to do so leaves one in the position of making superficial assessments of what motivates their decisions, complicating any attempts at successful interaction. In today’s increasingly globalized society, with political, financial, and military interactions occurring ever more frequently between parties with divergent religio-cultural backgrounds, addressing this problem is imperative – misinterpretation will often result in unacceptable consequences. With these concerns in mind, this project investigates one set of factors influencing the acquisition and development of religious beliefs: the social context and mode of transmission of religious concepts.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Cognition of Religion
There is a fairly thorough body of theoretical literature examining the relationship between the mode of transmission by which religious concepts are communicated and the assimilation of those concepts by individuals as beliefs. Whitehouse (2004) postulates a dichotomy of religious forms, broadly differentiated into a doctrinal mode and an imagistic mode. The doctrinal mode is based upon frequent, repetitive indoctrination and ritual, evoking only low levels of emotional arousal. This mode can be seen exemplified in the contemporary practices of the most common forms of Christianity. In contrast, the imagistic mode is based upon participation in rarely occurring, highly arousing ritual, such as that found in certain Melanesian initiatory systems in which “novices are tortured… as part of the ritual process”(Whitehouse 2002:99). Whereas the imagistic mode is primarily concerned with motivating memory for the performance of infrequent rituals, as well as the intuitive formulation of meanings for such rituals in the absence of explicit exegetical communication, the doctrinal mode is built around the need for an effective method of motivating memory and transmission of relatively complex and counterintuitive teachings (Whitehouse 2002). Before addressing this problem, however, it is useful to understand why such teachings are accorded value by their adherents.
A number of scholars have postulated theories that may illuminate how the teachings of doctrinal religions are imbued with a sense of meaning. Montesano (1995), in discussing the rhetorical nature of Christian religious transmission, infers that the narratives employed in this type of teaching create resonance between an audience’s personal experience and circumstances, and the general orientation in reality that the teaching espouses, through the medium of metaphor and symbolism. Similarly, Wimberly’s (1996) analysis of the use of narrative in Christian education among African Americans concludes that, through sharing stories featuring value-bearing beliefs and actions, individuals form insights into the relation of their own beliefs to the application of those beliefs in reality. Also, Whitehouse (2004) notes that doctrine must be widely relatable to personal experience if it is to be effectively assimilated. Shore (1991) proposes, in somewhat more general terms, that idiosyncratic individual experiences are mapped by analogy onto the models that a culture provides for interacting with reality, thus conventionalizing those experiences and rendering them meaningful contents of memory.
Outlined above is the process by which religious doctrine generates meaning in individuals’ lives. It remains to be shown how that doctrine may come to be accepted as a valid and authoritative source of meaning in the first place. Alston argues that “one is justified in engaging in a practice provided one does not have sufficient reasons for regarding it to be unreliable”(1982:7), and McLeod (1993) indicates the necessity of an authoritative source in the formation of beliefs that cannot be grounded in immediate experience. But because doctrine may contradict intuition or experience, the onus is on the doctrine to make itself accepted, against possible challenges. Whitehouse (2004) and Montesano (1995) both characterize doctrinal transmission as an act of persuasion, its persuasive power derived from the authority accorded to its source. That sense of authority is the result of a “lapse of meaning”(Shore 1991:15) that, according to Whitehouse, is caused by the repetitive communication of familiar information:
What makes [orthodox religious teachings] special is that although they are acquired in specifiable ways… they are not felt to originate in these sources…. [but rather in] some higher power…. [This obscurity] is a direct result of heavy repetition…. [Telling a story in this way] is not reducible to the general technical motivation… to impart information…. [T]he intentions of the speaker cannot be inferred…. We are left [with] a gap in our understanding, which is resolved by some official explanation – the intentions… come from God…(2004:102).
The difficulty in successfully maintaining transmission of doctrinal concepts through time is due to certain limitations of human cognitive capacity. Boyer (1992) and Whitehouse (2002) agree that the formation and maintenance of complex theoretical concepts derives from spontaneously generated assumptions about reality, universal among human beings. Concepts that are most easily recalled (“cognitively optimal”) deal with objects (such as supernatural agents) that violate some of these “commonsense” assumptions, while simultaneously operating within a framework that is implicitly based upon other commonsense principles (e.g., physical objects possess certain inherent properties). Boyer (1992) notes, for example, that the Fang people of Cameroon appear to extend an implicit assumption, that the referents of natural kind terms are differentiated by certain underlying traits, to their criteria for determining which persons qualify as beyem (persons having a magical capacity). On the other hand, “complex ideas about supernatural agents, which are neither easy to remember nor intrinsically very plausible [and] require costly support in terms of both memory and motivation”(Whitehouse 2004:55), are not cognitively optimal: the universal absolution of sin by means of the death and resurrection of the Son of God, to cite one familiar example. Such ideas require the doctrinal mode’s method of transmission if they are to be maintained through time.
Socialization of Religion
There have also been several quantitative studies of the influence of primary social environment on the development of religiosity, focusing mainly on the nuclear family. Bader and Desmond (2006) demonstrate that parents’ attitudes toward their religion have a greater effect than church attendance on their children’s acceptance of the religion, though the effectiveness of transmission increases significantly when parents’ behaviors are consistent with the attitudes they express. Additionally, both Hayes and Pittelkow (1993) and Bao, Whitbeck, Hoyt, and Conger (1999) have traced complex interactions between parental religiosity and other parenting traits, such as children’s perception of parental acceptance and the degree of moral supervision exercised by parents, in influencing children’s religiosity, with particular attention to differences across parent-child gender lines. “Mothers appeared to be more influential than fathers on both boys’ and girls’ religious beliefs” (Bao, et al. 1999:370), but whereas boys’ religiosity was most influenced by mothers perceived as more accepting, fathers perceived as less accepting had the greatest impact on girls’ concepts of God. “Regardless of parental religiosity, a son who has a strict mother is more likely to believe as an adult than a son who did not have such strict maternal supervision…. However, for female respondents the more general moral supervision of the father is significant with a complex relationship existing with the degree of supervision that is exercised”(Hayes and Pittelkow 1993:765).
As the above summary indicates, much of the existing research on the influence of social factors on religious belief falls into one of two categories: theoretical work connecting broad types of concept-transmission activity with equally generalized forms of cognition, and sociological analyses attempting to quantify “religiosity” in relation to socialization experiences not directly involving the transmission of information. It is my intent with this study to address the apparent lack of attention to the unique cognitive processes of individuals as they encounter, reflect upon, and assimilate or reject new religious concepts, in a variety of contexts and modes of transmission throughout their lifetimes.
METHODOLOGY
Research Question
In order to address how the social context and mode of transmission of religious concepts influence the process by which those concepts are accepted by individuals and transformed into beliefs, this study draws upon the data collected through open-ended interviews to operationalize a construct of the relationship between external interpersonal factors and personal processes of belief formation.
Sample Design
Because this study seeks to investigate processes of belief formation characteristic of social groups that espouse the explicit transmission of religious concepts, purposive sampling was utilized to first select six Christian church congregations in the Williamsport, Pennsylvania area: Balls Mills United Methodist, Calvary Baptist, the Christian Church at Cogan Station, Pine Street United Methodist, St. Luke Evangelical Lutheran, and Trinity Episcopal. Members of each congregation were notified of the project, and its need for voluntary interview participants, via the standard announcement mediums of their respective churches, and provided with the researcher’s contact information should they wish to volunteer. In order to form a sufficiently large sample for purposes of comparison across cases and tentative generalization to the greater population of interest, the collection of cases was limited only by volunteer response, and the time and resource constraints of the study. A total of seven individuals expressed willingness to participate: one from Calvary Baptist, three from Pine Street United Methodist, and three from Trinity Episcopal. Of these, five successfully scheduled and appeared for interviews within the time span of the research, and are referred to pseudonymously herein: Amy and Sue from Pine Street, and Joe, Kat, and Beth from Trinity.
Data Collection
Data relevant to the research question was collected through face-to-face, audio-recorded interviews, utilizing open-ended questions concerning participants’ personal histories of formal and informal religious experiences and instruction, when and how they encountered specific concepts, and their personal reactions and reflections throughout that process. The interview outline is designed to elicit each participant’s perception of the evolution of their belief system through time (See Appendix A). It addresses the participant’s experiences with multiple contexts of religious transmission, the ideas that are communicated in each context, and the participant’s perceptions of those processes. Given the open-ended nature of the questions, the content and organization of the interview outline evolved in response to insights derived over the duration of the study, as well as adapting to the emergent details of individual interviews.
Prior to each interview, participants agreed to the terms stated in an informed consent document (See Appendix B). Amy, Sue, and Joe were each interviewed in Lycoming College’s Pennington Lounge, at the interviewer’s suggestion; this location was chosen for its generally quiet atmosphere, and neutrality relative to both the respondent and interviewer. Kat was interviewed in the living room of her home, and Beth was interviewed in the parish office of Trinity Episcopal church, each at the respondent’s suggestion. I do not believe that the interview locations had any significant effect upon the interview process; all respondents appeared to be at ease, and remained focused and attentive throughout. The duration of each interview was highly dependent upon the amount of information with which participants responded to questions, the amount of prompting by the interviewer necessary to elicit sufficient detail, as well as what new lines of inquiry were suggested by participants’ responses. The shortest interview lasted approximately 25 minutes, the longest lasted approximately 45 minutes.
Data Analysis
Each interview was transcribed, and subjected to a coding process. Initial open coding was applied to the concrete data expressed in interview responses in order to formulate generalized themes, including: (i) frequency, (ii) context, and (iii) character of concept transmission, (iv) occurrence of personal reflection upon beliefs, (v) rationalized versus non-rationalized beliefs, and (vi) formal characteristics of core beliefs. This was followed by axial coding, in which the themes derived during open coding were further refined to more accurately reflect nuances of the data, and relationships of causality, chronology, and other types of association were identified among themes, as well as the distribution of those relationships across cases. These relationships among themes were finally operationalized into a theoretical construct outlining the relationship of the social context and mode of transmission of religious concepts to individuals’ intrapsychic transformation of those concepts into beliefs.
FINDINGS
A number of recurring themes emerged through the interviews. Many of these illustrate a high degree of similarity in the experiences of respondents, but some distinct differences are also apparent.
Frequency, Context, and Character of Concept Transmission
All respondents reported basically consistent attendance of church services beginning in early childhood and continuing to the present (Sue: “Soon as I was born, basically. As soon as they brought me home from the hospital.”; “…I’m a regular attender.”), but most also experienced at least one period of nonattendance, typically in early adulthood and attributed to an apathetic or disaffected attitude toward the practice (Joe: “…I went through a period where I didn’t go to church, in college, in my early to late twenties….”; “I… became disgruntled with the Roman Catholic Church and its strict teachings, didn’t feel like I really fit in there….”). Descriptions of typical services at the respondents’ respective churches all indicate the use of stable liturgical structures with content selected from a thematically consistent stock (Sue: “Church, you know, just, on a weekly, yearly basis, just taught and re-taught.”). None of the respondents could identify a specific instance in which they first encountered or accepted any of their particular beliefs (Amy: “I can’t recall when I was first exposed to it, because I think I always was….”), instead indicating that they have either held those beliefs since childhood or gradually developed them over time (Kat: “I think that has changed, wondering who Jesus is… but I’m not sure when, I think it’s been sort of gradual….”).
In addition to regular attendance of church services, all respondents report participating in Bible-study, Sunday school, or other activities in which the familiar content of church services was discussed and analyzed in greater detail. Most indicated that this type of activity facilitated the conceptualization of meaning for doctrinal assertions that had previously been accepted as true, but not consciously understood (Sue: “The Sunday school class that I go to now really picks apart things, to where I can understand it more.”).
Respondents varied markedly in the frequency with which religious activity and discourse was encountered among immediate family during their formative years, as well as the character of that discourse. Two respondents indicated both regular family church attendance and informal discussion of religious concepts, but the content of discourse noted by each differs: Amy recalls frequent debate over the validity of certain beliefs with family members who did not subscribe to them, but asserts that this did not undermine her personal faith (Amy: “…I can remember sitting around grandma’s table and they would be discussing their beliefs, or lack thereof.…”; “…I would always kinda listen to it, but it never really caused me to drift away from it.”). Kat’s family, on the other hand, engaged in both explicit interpretation of doctrine and incorporation of doctrine into the realm of discourse shared by the family across generations (Kat: “…it’s a long tradition in our family… the 121st Psalm… we always said that before a long journey, and my family still does, and my children still do.…”). Of the remaining three respondents, Beth reported that although her parents thought it important that she receive religious instruction, and arranged for her to attend Sunday school regularly, they themselves did not frequently attend church, and religion was not a topic of discussion within the family. The other two respondents, Sue and Joe, each regularly attended church with their parents, and while both indicate the general absence of religious matters from discussion (Sue: “…it was just a topic we didn’t dwell on during the week, it was Sunday morning talk.”), Sue does recall that her father would sometimes pose implicitly disingenuous questions about doctrinal issues as topics of casual conversation (Sue: “My father liked to play devil’s advocate….”; “‘What if we all die and we’re all wrong?’ And he believed, it wasn’t that he didn’t believe, he was just doing the ‘what if?’.”).
Reflection Upon Beliefs
All respondents expressed the opinion that questioning the meaning and validity of doctrine is normal and acceptable (Amy: “…I can remember in high school and college both, kind of questioning, like everyone does.”). In addition, at least two (Joe and Beth) seemed to consider reflectively encountering uncertainty to be essential to the development of their beliefs (Joe: “…there remains a lot that we don’t know, we don’t understand, and I’m not sure we’re meant to understand….”; “Prayer is not meant to change God’s agenda, it’s perhaps meant more to help us maybe understand what God’s agenda for us is.”).