Social influences on belief in creationism

Abstract

This study uses correlation and regression analysis to examine two approaches to understanding belief in creationism and, by extension, an array of socially conservative attitudes: long‐term socialization and present community membership. Long‐term socialization gains clear support. There are independent effects of size of childhood hometown and having had a mother who played a traditional homemaker role (creationists tend to have come from smaller towns and to have had traditional mothers). There is fragmentary evidence of an independent effect of childhood denomination. However, there also is evidence of effects of present religious community membership in that there are differences between conservative Protestants and Christians from other denominations in predictors of beliefs. Among the latter, educational attainment has the strongest effect on scores on an index of creationist belief, but belief in the Bible has no effect. However, among conservative Protestants, education shows almost no effect at all, and the Bible belief item has the strongest effect. I interpret these differences in terms of normative pressures on conservative Protestants both to take literalist positions on the Bible and to see public education in hostile terms.

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