Cross-cultural variations in Big Five relationships with religiosity: A sociocultural motives perspective.

Gebauer, Jochen E.; Bleidorn, Wiebke; Gosling, Samuel D.; Rentfrow, Peter J.; Lamb, Michael E.; Potter, Jeff

doi:10.1037/a0037683

Cited by 108 publications

(157 citation statements)

References 139 publications

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“…We assessed individual-level religiosity with two scales, the Global Religiosity Measure In line with prior research (Gebauer, Bleidorn, et al, 2014), East German participants were least religious, US participants were most religious, and UK participants fell in between (Table 2).…”

Section: Procedures and Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Christian self-enhancement.

Gebauer

Sedikides

Schrade

2017

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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People overestimate themselves in domains that are central to their self-concept. Critically, the psychological status of this “self-centrality principle” remains unclear. One view regards the principle as an inextricable part of human nature and, thus, as universal and resistant to normative pressure. A contrasting view regards the principle as liable to pressure (and subsequent modification) from self-effacement norms, thus questioning its universality. Advocates of the latter view point to Christianity’s robust self-effacement norms, which they consider particularly effective in curbing self-enhancement, and ascribe Christianity an ego-quieting function. Three sets of studies examined the self-centrality principle among Christians. Studies 1A and 1B (N = 2,118) operationalized self-enhancement as better-than-average perceptions on the domains of commandments of faith (self-centrality: Christians ≫ nonbelievers) and commandments of communion (self-centrality: Christians > nonbelievers). Studies 2A–2H (N = 1,779) operationalized self-enhancement as knowledge overclaiming on the domains of Christianity (self-centrality: Christians ≫ nonbelievers), communion (self-centrality: Christians > nonbelievers), and agency (self-centrality: Christians ≈ nonbelievers). Studies 3A–3J (N = 1,956) operationalized self-enhancement as grandiose narcissism on the domains of communion (self-centrality: Christians > nonbelievers) and agency (self-centrality: Christians ≈ nonbelievers). The results converged across studies, yielding consistent evidence for Christian self-enhancement. Relative to nonbelievers, Christians self-enhanced strongly in domains central to the Christian self-concept. The results also generalized across countries with differing levels of religiosity. Christianity does not quiet the ego. The self-centrality principle is resistant to normative pressure, universal, and rooted in human nature.

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Section: Procedures and Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Christian self-enhancement.

Gebauer

Sedikides

Schrade

2017

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

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“…9 Figure 2 provides a complementary display of the same cross-level interaction (Gebauer et al 2014b), depicting each country's religiosity-esteem relation as a function of its country-level religiosity. This figure shows that our results are not merely driven by the religiosity-esteem relations within a few extreme countries.…”

Section: Basic Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, it is helpful to control for informants' self-ratings on the same dimensions on which informants rate the target persons (Gebauer et al, 2014b(Gebauer et al, , 2015. Doing so can combat three sources of bias.…”

Section: Study 2: Informant-reports Across 36 Countriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Religiosity's relations with agreeableness and conscientiousness differ across sociocultural contexts in much the same way as religiosity's relation with self-esteem does (Gebauer et al 2014b). Agreeableness and conscientiousness are zero-order correlates of self-esteem (Gebauer et al 2015;Robins et al, 2002).…”

Section: Seven Addressed Alternative Explanationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, we excluded respondents from countries with less than 1,000 cases to ensure measurement precision within each country. A minimum n of 1,000 per country is a conservative criterion (Bleidorn et al, 2016;Schönbrodt & Perugini, 2013), but it is frequently used in large-scale, cross-cultural research (Diener et al, 2011;Gebauer et al, 2014b). Table 1 lists all 65 countries and their demographic composition.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The religiosity as social value hypothesis: A replication and extension

Gebauer¹,

Sedikides²,

Schönbrodt³

et al. 2016

Preprint

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Are religious people psychologically better or worse adjusted than their non-religious counterparts? Hundreds of studies have reported a positive relation between religiosity and psychological adjustment. Recently, however, a comparatively small number of cross-cultural studies has questioned this staple of religiosity research. The latter studies find that religious adjustment benefits are restricted to religious cultures. Gebauer, Sedikides, and Neberich (2012b) suggested the religiosity-as-social-value hypothesis (RASV) as one explanation for those cross-cultural differences. RASV states that, in religious cultures, religiosity possesses much social value, and, as such, religious people will feel particularly good about themselves. In secular cultures, however, religiosity possesses limited social value, and, as such, religious people will feel less good about themselves, if at all. Yet, previous evidence has been inconclusive regarding RASV and regarding cross-cultural differences in religious adjustment benefits more generally. To clarify matters, we conducted three replication studies. We examined the relation between religiosity and self-esteem (the most direct and appropriate adjustment indicator, according to RASV) in a self-report study across 65 countries (N = 2,195,301), an informant-report study across 36 countries (N = 560,264), and another self- report study across 1,932 urban areas from 243 federal states in 18 countries (N = 1,188,536). Moreover, we scrutinized our results against seven, previously untested, alternative explanations. Our results fully and firmly replicated and extended prior evidence for cross-cultural differences in religious adjustment benefits. These cross-cultural differences were best explained by the RASV hypothesis.

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Too special to be duped: Need for uniqueness motivates conspiracy beliefs

Imhoff

Lamberty

2017

Euro J Social Psych

181

128

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Adding to the growing literature on the antecedents of conspiracy beliefs, this paper argues that a small part in motivating the endorsement of such seemingly irrational beliefs is the desire to stick out from the crowd, the need for uniqueness. Across three studies, we establish a modest but robust association between the self‐attributed need for uniqueness and a general conspirational mindset (conspiracy mentality) as well as the endorsement of specific conspiracy beliefs. Following up on previous findings that people high in need for uniqueness resist majority and yield to minority influence, Study 3 experimentally shows that a fictitious conspiracy theory received more support by people high in conspiracy mentality when this theory was said to be supported by only a minority (vs. majority) of survey respondents. Together, these findings support the notion that conspiracy beliefs can be adopted as a means to attain a sense of uniqueness.

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Cross-cultural variations in Big Five relationships with religiosity: A sociocultural motives perspective.

Cited by 108 publications

References 139 publications

Christian self-enhancement.

Christian self-enhancement.

The religiosity as social value hypothesis: A replication and extension

Too special to be duped: Need for uniqueness motivates conspiracy beliefs

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