Religious Exiting and Social Networks: Computer Simulations of Religious/Secular Pluralism

Statistical models attempting to predict who will disaffiliate from religions have typically accounted for less than 15% of the variation in religious affiliations, suggesting that we only a partial understanding this vital social process. Using agent-based simulations three “artificial societies” (one predominantly religious; one secular; and between), demonstrate worldview pluralism within one’s neighborhood family networks can be significant predictor (dis)affiliation but pluralistic societies diversity is important and, instead, people move toward neutrality. Our results suggest there may two phases disaffiliation: (1) early adopters initially regardless support, subsequently (2) disaffiliation spreads as support it local widens appears more acceptable. An next step sociologists confirm or correct theoretical findings model using real-world social-network data, which require overcoming measurement difficulties involved estimating each individual’s degree network pluralism.