tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post6028977819806744241..comments2024-03-27T01:01:09.785-07:00Comments on Probably Overthinking It: Secularization in America: part sevenAllen Downeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01633071333405221858noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-25889223975949893482012-11-17T06:34:56.368-08:002012-11-17T06:34:56.368-08:00Hi, and thanks for these comments. The factors I ...Hi, and thanks for these comments. The factors I included in the model account for about half of the observed disaffiliation, leaving another half to be explained by other factors. It is certainly plausible that public opposition to religion is such a factor. If so, then it should be possible to measure that effect by comparing people with different levels of exposure to these cultural factors.<br /><br />On a technical note, the kind of exogenous factors you mentioned would affect the constant term in the logistic regression, but would not violate the assumptions of the model.Allen Downeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01633071333405221858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-77050252349760872252012-11-16T19:46:14.920-08:002012-11-16T19:46:14.920-08:00One factor that has increased substantially is the...One factor that has increased substantially is the opposition of celebrities and other influential people to religion. <br /><br />The logistic regression model assumes that each responses is independent of the others in the sample (or that the dependence can be modeled in simple ways, as in mixed models) -- but religious affiliation and disaffiliation, like any cultural construct, is going to be highly non-linear and dependent. People react to what they perceive to be acceptable behaviour in those around them. And the example of celebrities and powerful individuals is determinative for many people.<br /><br />Typically, where religious practice dies out in a particular country, it is because the state has taken active steps to kill it off: Judaism in central Europe in the XXth century; Christianity in Russia in the XXth century; Buddhism in China under the communists (ditto Falung Gong and Christianity); Catholicism in France in the XIXth century.<br /><br />Interesting theory about the Internet. What would be the causal mechanism involved, if the Internet is not simply a confounder?Placidiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03962015512296009957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-39018762661945449312012-11-12T07:32:39.673-08:002012-11-12T07:32:39.673-08:00Hi Jonathan, Thanks for a thoughtful comment. Yo...Hi Jonathan, Thanks for a thoughtful comment. You are right that there is a danger here: disaffiliation went up in the 1990s, and so did Internet use, so naturally there is a correlation between them.<br /><br />But there are a few reasons to think that the relationship I reported is actually causative. One is that I controlled for several of the other factors that were changing during the same period, and that also contributed to disaffiliation: the big two are being raised with religion (which went down) and going to college (which went up).<br /><br />Another reason to believe that the relationship is not spurious is the "dose-response curve;" that is, the likelihood of disaffiliation goes up with Internet use. The model I reported here use two levels of Internet use; I also ran models with three levels, and found that the relationship holds up.<br /><br />It is still possible that a third factor explains both Internet use and disaffiliation, but that factor would also have to increase substantially during the 1990s and 2000s.<br /><br />If you get a chance to explore the data, let me know what you find!Allen Downeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01633071333405221858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-39896761668705121652012-11-11T09:51:05.355-08:002012-11-11T09:51:05.355-08:00Very nice work. I just have one main concern: it d...Very nice work. I just have one main concern: it doesn't control for time. It seems to be a given that people are using the Internet more and are becoming more disaffiliated over time. Does the significant correlation really say any more than this? Increased Internet use is obviously time-dependent, hence making the assumption that Internet use is the most significant time-dependent factor in explaining the disaffiliation seems to be a rather big assumption to me.<br /><br />It would be really interesting if Internet use in the earlier years was correlated with increased disaffiliation. Thanks for the intellectually stimulating article. I really enjoyed it. I'm not sure if I should spend the time to play around with the data (http://thinkstats.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/workspace.thinkstats/ThinkStats/gss.1990-2010.csv), but it is very tempting!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-67913859847609158852012-10-11T17:24:45.626-07:002012-10-11T17:24:45.626-07:00Hi Jim. Those are all good questions, so thanks! ...Hi Jim. Those are all good questions, so thanks! You might be interested in this report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life:<br /><br />http://www.pewforum.org/Unaffiliated/nones-on-the-rise.aspx<br /><br />It just came out a few days ago, reports a lot of the same trends I have been writing about, and gets a little deeper into the decline in Protestantism.<br /><br />But for your particular question about what seems to be a disparate impact on Protestants, I'm afraid neither the Pew report or I have much of an answer. Allen Downeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01633071333405221858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-41293799943498701282012-10-11T16:32:31.403-07:002012-10-11T16:32:31.403-07:00The thing that stands out to is the inverse relati...The thing that stands out to is the inverse relationship matching so closely between the drop in Protestantism and the rise in None (-9, +10). I'm not trying to be facetious when I ask if this internet theory of disaffiliation affects protestants harder or if this is an artifact of the larger population of Protestants. Are Jewish, Catholic, and "other" groups more immune to Internet-base disaffiliation because of stronger social ties, religious-based or possibly minority-based? Are the other populations small enough that we aren't seeing the drop as prominently?Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02640404480235306127noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-1522756780754089352012-07-21T06:02:26.762-07:002012-07-21T06:02:26.762-07:00Yes! All data and code are in the Think Stats rep...Yes! All data and code are in the Think Stats repository:<br /><br />http://code.google.com/p/thinkstats/<br /><br />You can check out the whole repo, or go to<br /><br />http://code.google.com/p/thinkstats/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk%2Fworkspace.thinkstats%2FThinkStats<br /><br />And just grab the files that start with gss. Or you can get the data straight from the GSS.<br /><br />Let me know if you find anything interesting.Allen Downeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01633071333405221858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-53752056140197855722012-07-21T04:46:50.474-07:002012-07-21T04:46:50.474-07:00Can you make your data available?Can you make your data available?Will Dwinnellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03379859054257561952noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-23951913093478511002012-07-11T19:14:47.858-07:002012-07-11T19:14:47.858-07:00That's possible. Thanks for the comment!That's possible. Thanks for the comment!Allen Downeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01633071333405221858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-29933792618116632642012-07-11T19:06:51.090-07:002012-07-11T19:06:51.090-07:00Really excellent analysis. One thing stood out tho...Really excellent analysis. One thing stood out though:<br /><br />"Conversely it is harder to imagine plausible reasons why disaffiliation might cause increased Internet use (except possibly on Sunday mornings)."<br /><br />It is not impossible, certainly, and to a certain degree even probable, that in communities which are homogeneous and strongly religious, that a person might feel alienated by his/her community, or may even be ostracized for his/her beliefs. This would, in turn, lead to an increase in internet usage, both as a form of stress relief and as a means of communicating with other like-minded individuals. I have seen numerous examples of people doing just this on /r/atheism because the communities they live in look down on them, or cause them undo stress from hiding their religious affiliations from their friends and families.<br /><br />While this is certainly not going to drastically alter the internet usage of non-believers in general, it is still a factor worth considering.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08888292078882250232noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-69690323726177369292012-07-11T15:23:30.184-07:002012-07-11T15:23:30.184-07:00David, you packed a lot of interesting ideas into ...David, you packed a lot of interesting ideas into a short comment. Thanks!Allen Downeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01633071333405221858noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6894866515532737257.post-69535515979887752882012-07-11T14:38:31.982-07:002012-07-11T14:38:31.982-07:00The case for internet causation looks good.
One m...The case for internet causation looks good. <br />One may also consider reverse causation (or a common prior cause):<br />religiosity -> affiliation and<br />religiosity -> less internet use.<br /><br />The important group are the weakly affiliated group of the 80s becoming unaffiliated in the 90s.<br />This may very well be an internet (or even internet mediated adult content*) effect. The 90s hedonistic mindset creating too much of a conflict with religious narrative.<br />Perhaps a less hedonistic mindset, as a result of the ongoing financial crises will promote more religious affiliation.<br /><br />* The mainstream-ification of adult content through the internet in tandem with cable TV could have created a wide chasm between religion and conservatism and non-affiliation. A group which found it easy to be affiliated in the 80s had to choose non-affiliation in the 90s to keep a consistent self-image.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com