Can rational choice modeling explain destructive behavior among the Taliban, Hamas and other radical religious militias? This paper proposes a club good framework which emphasizes the function of voluntary religious organizations as efficient providers of local public goods in the absence of government provision. The sacrifices these groups demand are economically efficient (as in Iannaccone (1...

Two hundred and sixty-three alcohol using college students completed a questionnaire on their levels of alcohol use, problems with alcohol use, reasons for drinking, perceptions of control over drinking, impulsivity, venturesomeness, irrational beliefs, neuroticism, expectations of alcohol effects, depression, social norms, religious affiliation and intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity. Analyses...

Intraindividual patterns of time-lagged relationships among self-reports of worldviews/religious beliefs, self-concept, and physical and psychological wellbeing were investigated. Participants were older adults (mean age = 77 years) who were measured weekly covering a total of 25 weeks. Dynamic Factor Models were fitted to multivariate repeated measures data pooled over subsets of participants....

Relations between personality profiles, measured by the Personality Characteristics Inventory (PCI), and habitual coping strategies, measured by the Utrecht Coping List (UCL), were investigated in a sample of submarine personnel and office employees. The predictive validity of these instruments were examined for reported stress, health complaints, and salivary cortisone measures during 3 submar...

Objective. Many organization theories suggest that divergent goals can hamper an organization’s pursuit of its primary mission. This study analyzes the effect of the pursuit of divergent goals on American public schools. Methods. Using an educational production function, this paper assesses the relationships between athletic budgets and various aggregate measures of academic performance. Result...

The authors examined relations among different measures of acculturation, and between acculturation and sexual behavior, in a sample of female Cuban American college students (n=61, M age = 18.4 years) who completed self-report surveys. In the first set of analyses, weak to moderate associations emerged among 4 measures of acculturation (birthplace, childhood language use, current language use,...

We provide evidence that cultural norms affect the likelihood of unethical corporate behavior. Firms headquartered in highly religious counties are less likely to backdate options, grant excessive compensation packages to their managers, practice aggressive earnings management, and be the target of class action securities lawsuits. Our results are strongest for locations with greater concentrat...

Despite the centrality of religion and fertility to life in rural Africa, the relationship between the two remains poorly understood. The study presented here uses unique integrated individual and congregational level data from rural Malawi to examine religious influences on contraceptive use. In this religiously diverse population, we find evidence that the particular characteristics of a cong...

BACKGROUND While religious faith remains one of the most significant features of human life, little is known about its relationship to ordinary belief at the level of the brain. Nor is it known whether religious believers and nonbelievers differ in how they evaluate statements of fact. Our lab previously has used functional neuroimaging to study belief as a general mode of cognition [1], and ot...