BACKGROUND Patients' religious commitments and religious communities are known to influence their experiences of illness and their medical decisions. Physicians are also dynamic partners in the doctor-patient relationship, yet little is known about the religious characteristics of physicians or how physicians' religious commitments shape the clinical encounter. OBJECTIVE To provide a baseline...

Purpose This paper aims to analyze the relationship between religious differences (i.e. religious diversity and tolerance diversity), on the one hand, and dysfunctional intergroup conflicts, on the other. Design/methodology/approach A quantitative research design is used, through which the paper examines 47 public schools in India. Findings Religious diversity, that is, the distribution of hete...

BACKGROUND HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination are significant determinants of HIV transmission in the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), where the adult HIV/AIDS prevalence is 2.5%. T&T is a spiritually-aware society and over 104 religious groups are represented. This religious diversity creates a complex social environment for the transmission of a sexually transmitt...

Pre-existing questionnaire data, from Oregon Research Institute’s (ORI) SMOFAM project, from 274 participants for the 1996-1997-assessment year (T-10), were examined for relationships between relationship discord, depression, and religiosity. Religiosity was defined as religious belief and religious activity. For the purpose of this study, altruism and social support were also associated with r...

Within disciplines of religious studies, discussions of religious experience tend to revolve around the most rare and extraordinary cases, while neglecting much more common varieties of “ordinary religious experience”—that is, experiences of regular practitioners in the midst of normal religious activities such as worship or prayer. This comment will, first, call attention to this essential asp...

Children and adults differentiate statements of religious belief from statements of fact and opinion, but the basis of that differentiation remains unclear. Across three experiments, adults and 8-10-year-old children heard statements of factual, opinion-based, and religious belief. Adults and children judged that statements of factual belief revealed more about the world, statements of opinion ...

OBJECTIVE This study investigated the relationship between positive and negative religious coping and quality of life among outpatients with schizophrenia. METHODS Interviews were conducted with 63 adults in the southeastern United States. Religious coping was measured by the 14-item RCOPE and quality of life by the World Health Organization Quality of Life–BREF. Data were examined via descri...

Immigrants and Religion Religious considerations affect the decision to immigrate as well as the choice of destination country, and religious behaviors change as immigrants adjust to the economic context of their new country. This paper considers the interaction between the Economics of Religion and the Economics of Immigration, and distinguishes between religiosity per se and an immigrant’s re...

Many studies have explored the links between family structure, parental religiosity, and youth religiosity, but results across studies have been inconsistent and have largely ignored new diverse family forms. Using data on 2,320 youth and their parents from the National Study of Youth and Religion, this study focused on whether and why religious transmission from parents to youth varies among d...

The rational choice literature on religion has been noticeably silent on the nature and purpose of religious authority. I first summarize the rational choice theory of authority and offer a rational choice definition of religious authority. A primary insight is that (religious) authority exists to coordinate social action. I then argue that social coordination is a fundamental aspect of religio...