Religiosity and illegal drug use

A typical liberal refrain is that religious folks are just as bad a irreligious people; they're just hypocrites. Even religious types will sometimes say that many of their own behave badly because the church attracts people with problems.

GSS respondents were asked if they had used illegal drugs in the past year. Here are the percentages who answered yes by church attendance:

Percent who used illegal drugs in the past year (sample size = 2,323)

Never attends 8.9
Less than once a year 6.1
Once a year 8.7
Several times a year 5.3
Once a month 1.8*
Two or three times a month 3.3*
Nearly every week 1.5*
Every week 1.0*
More than once a week 1.8*

*significantly less than the "never attends" group


People who never go to church are five times as likely to use illegal drugs as people who attend more than once a week.

Sexual orientation and sexual satisfaction

MIDUS study participants were asked to rate their sex lives from 0 to 10. Here are the means (sample size = 3,729):

Mean sex life rating:

Straight men 5.35
Homosexual men 5.09
Straight women 4.91*
Female bisexuals 4.44
Male bisexuals 4.12
Lesbians 3.50*

*significantly lower than straight males

Straight men are the most satisfied; lesbians are the least. The gap between the highest and lowest groups is sixth-tenths of a standard deviation--a large difference. Women tend to give lower ratings, perhaps because they get less out of sex than men.

Lesbians and the Big Five

Following the method I used in the last post, I estimated the relationship between sexual orientation and the Big Five personality traits for women (sample size = 2,094):

Standardized OLS regression coefficients

Extraversion .01
Negative emotionality .04*
Conscientiousness -.05*
Agreeableness -.03
Openness to experience .01

Compared to straight women, lesbians are more negatively emotional and less conscientious. Lower agreeableness falls just short of statistical significance.

Gay men and the Big 5

I looked at the relationship between sexual orientation and Big 5 personality traits. I included self-esteem as a control--results are not shown (sample size = 1,724):

Standardized OLS regression coefficients

Extraversion .02
Negative emotionality .01
Conscientiousness -.01
Agreeableness .05*
Openness to experience .13*

Compared to straight men, gays are more agreeable and open to experience. Lesbians are next...

Predictors of getting cheated on

The MIDUS Study asked respondents if their spouse had ever been unfaithful. I wanted to identify respondent characteristics that predict this.

Logistic regression coefficients

Men (sample size = 717)

Extraversion .12
Negative emotionality -.02
Conscientiousness -.15
Agreeableness .40*
Openness to experience .01
Age -.03*
Social class .00
Religiosity -.27*
BMI .00

*statistically significant

Of the Big 5 personality traits, only being agreeable predicts being cheated on for men. Older men are less likely to have this happen, as are religious men. Body mass index has no predictive power.

Women (sample size = 850)

Extraversion -.11
Negative emotionality .01
Conscientiousness -.44*
Agreeableness -.03
Openness to experience .43*
Age .00
Social class .00
Religiosity -.14*
BMI .01

*statistically significant

For women, conscientiousness lowers the risk of being cheated on, while being open raises one's chances. The only other predictor that matters is religion: religious women are less likely to get cheated on.
 
By the way, my experience with the data is the same as that of Rodney Stark as described in What Americans Really Believe. Compared to each of the Big Five traits, religiosity is a more potent variable. It frequently predicts outcome measures more strongly. Add this to the finding that the heritability of religiosity is .5, and perhaps Stark is right that religiosity should be considered a major personality trait.

The wussification of America II

This graph shows trends in American attitudes toward spanking (GSS data). From 1986 to 2010, the percent disapproving or strongly disapproving (green and yellow) almost doubled from 17 percent to 31 percent. At this rate, we'll soon be joining the other countries that have banned corporal punishment.

The wussification of America

This graph shows the percent of U.S. households that have at least one firearm (GSS data). From 1973 to 2010, the figure has dropped from 48 to 32 percent. Over the period, ownership has fallen by one-third. This is another indicator of the country's move in a liberal direction.

Atheists who believe God created nature?

GSS respondents were asked whether they believed that: 1) nature is sacred because it was created by God; 2) nature is sacred in itself; or 3) nature is important, but not sacred (sample size = 3,505). Of the people who "know that God exists", 54 percent gave answer 1; 18 percent gave answer 2; and 28 percent answered number 3. In other words, most believers think nature is sacred because it is God's creation.

But here's the weird part: 13 percent of the 92 surveyed atheists said that nature is sacred because it was created by God. (Twenty-seven percent answered 2, and 60 percent answered 3). "Atheist" is defined as "not believing in God." Unless the 12 atheists who gave 1 for an answer are retarded (or perhaps there was some other type of miscommunication) they mean something else by "doesn't believe in God." I can imagine people interpreting the statement to mean "I don't follow or agree with God."

According to the GSS, only 2.6  percent of Americans say they do not believe in God. It might be the case that fewer actually do not believe in the existence of God.  

It's interesting too that atheists are less likely to give nature an elevated status. Sixty percent of them say that nature is important but not sacred, compared to 28 percent of believers. Perhaps a more secular term like "cherished" would have elicited more affirmative responses; perhaps atheists are less likely to give anything a really elevated value--I don't know.  

Jews and Big 5 traits

I estimated OLS models for Big Five personality traits with self-esteem and whether or not you are Jewish as predictors (sample size = 3,915--94 Jews):

Standardized OLS regression coefficients

Extraversion
Jewish .03*
Self-esteem .40*

Negative emotionality
Jewish .04*
Self-esteem -.51*

Agreeableness
Jewish .02
Self-esteem .17*

Conscientiousness
Jewish .01
Self-esteem .37*

Openness to experience
Jewish .03*
Self-esteem .39*

Controlling for self-esteem, Jews are significantly more extraverted, negatively emotional, and open to experience. They are not more conscientious or disagreeable (as I thought they would be).

By the way, Jews do not differ from others in self-esteem.

Episcopalians, self-esteem, and Big Five personality traits

Using MIDUS data, I estimated OLS regression models with Big 5 personality traits as dependent variables and self-esteem and whether or not the respondent is an Episcopalian as predictors (sample = 3,915--93 Episcopalians):

Standardized OLS regression coefficients

Extraversion
Episcopalian .00
Self-esteem .41*

Negative emotionality
Episcopalian .00
Self-esteem -.51*

Conscientiousness
Episcopalian .00 
Self-esteem .37*

Agreeableness
Episcopalian -.02
Self-esteem .17*

Open to experience
Episcopalian .04*
Self-esteem .39*

*statistically significant

In spite of being an elite religious group, Episcopalians do not differ from others except that they are a little bit more open to experience.

The more interesting finding, perhaps, is that self-esteem is strongly related to all five traits. It is positively associated with desirable traits and inversely related to negative emotionality. People who have more esteem for themselves rate their traits more highly across the board. The correlation between agreeableness and self-esteem is weaker than the others perhaps because, while agreeableness is considered to be a good trait, it also suggests the person is a "yes-man."

Mormons, self-esteem, and conscientiousness

I looked into Dr. Charlton's suggestion in the comments of the last post that self-esteem might boost self-assessment of conscientiousness. Using MIDUS data, I estimated an OLS model with conscientiousness as the dependent variable and self-esteem as a predictor. I also added a Mormon-versus-others dummy variable as a predictor in order to see if greater conscientiousness might emerge for Mormons once the influence of self-esteem is controlled. 

OLS Standardized Regression Coefficients

Mormon -.03
Self-Esteem .37*

*statistically significant

Self-esteem is strongly related to higher conscientiousness scores. Personality researchers may do well to examine if self-assessments are distorted by the level of self-esteem. On the other hand, the result for Mormons remains unchanged: they do not differ from others in conscientiousness even when the influence of self-esteem is controlled.   

Mormons and personality

Personality differences across religious affiliation is interesting. Let's use MIDUS data to look at Mormons (sample size = 3,960, 76 Mormons).

Mean scores

Extraversion
Mormons 2.98
Others 3.10

Negative emotionality
Mormons 2.06
Others 2.09

Agreeableness
Mormons 3.42 
Others 3.45

Conscientiousness
Mormons 3.40
Others 3.49

Open to experience
Mormons 2.86
Others 2.90

There are no significant differences. It turns out that, in terms of personality, Mormons are boringly the same as everyone else. (I hypothesized that they would be more agreeable, more conscientious, and less open to experience. I was wrong on all counts.)

Agnostics and Big 5 personality traits

Readers SFG and HBD Chick suggested that I compare the personality traits of agnostics with non-agnostics (MIDUS data, sample size = 3,960).


Mean scores

Extraversion
Agnostics 2.82*
Others 3.10
Cohen's d .49

Negative emotionality
Agnostics 2.15
Others 2.09

Agreeableness
Agnostics 3.23*
Others 3.45
Cohen's d .44

Conscientiousness
Agnostics 3.36*
Others 3.49
Cohen's d .29

Openness to experience
Agnostics 3.17*
Others 2.90
Cohen's d .50

*Agnostics and others are significantly different

Compared to the general population, agnostics are more introverted, less agreeable, less conscientious, and more open. They are like atheists, only shy and neurotic.

Atheists and the Big 5 personality traits

Using MIDUS Study data, I calculated mean Big 5 personality scores for atheists and others (sample size = 3,960).

Mean scores
Extraversion
Atheists 2.99
Others 3.10

Negative emotionality
Atheists 1.81*
Others 2.10
Cohen's d .46

Agreeableness
Atheists 3.15*
Others 3.45
Cohen's d .60

Conscientiousness
Atheists 3.37
Others 3.49

Openness to experience
Atheists 3.36*
Others 2.90
Cohen's d .85

*atheists and others are significantly different

Cohen's d is a measure of the gap between means. Compared to others, atheists are significantly less neurotic, less agreeable, and more open to experience. The differences for the latter two are large. It is not surprising to observe that atheists are disagreeable and open to new things.

Interest in Mex-Ams

Some readers, I'm sure, think I have some odd interest in Mexican Americans. Well, it's not odd--it's simple math. New from Pew:

31.8 million people is roughly TEN million more people than all Americans who say they are of English ancestry. TEN million more!! (2006-2008 American Community Sample)

Peruvians are fascinating people, but who cares?

Men, women, and childlessness

In the comments of the last post, Dr. Bruce Charlton reminds us of the issue of growing female childless ness. Let's compare men and women on this. I list below the percent of people without any children. I limit the women to those ages 45 to 64, and ages 50 to 69 for men.

Percent childless

1970s
Men 17.3
Women 13.8

1980s
Men 13.4
Women 10.2

1990s
Men 14.3
Women 15.8

2000s
Men 19.0
Women 15.8

2010
Men 16.6
Women 18.8

The percent of women with no kids almost doubled from 10.2 percent in the 1980s to 18.8 percent in 2010. Having no kids has also grown a bit among men. The childless numbers for men and women are pretty close to each other which fails to support the claim that men are much more variable in their fruitfulness than women.

Less variation in family size

Using General Social Survey (GSS) data, I calculated the mean number of offspring for women ages 45 to 64 for each decade since the 1970s. I display these numbers below, along with standard deviations--a measure of variation--and estimates of kurtosis--the degree to which a distribution is flatter or more peaked than a normal distribution:

1970s
Mean 2.77
SD 2.04
Kurtosis .19

1980s
Mean 3.07
SD 2.05
Kurtosis -.09

1990s
Mean 2.54
SD 1.75
Kurtosis .86

2000s
Mean 2.14
SD 1.54
Kurtosis 1.38

2010
Mean 2.05
SD 1.60
Kurtosis 2.35

We all know that family size has shrunk over the past few decades: according to GSS data, from 2.77 children in the 1970s to 2.05 last year. The standard deviations indicate a reduced amount of variation in completed number of offsapring. In the 1970s, SD was 2.04, meaning that if we grabbed two random  women who had completed their families, our best guess is that one mom would have two more kids than the other. Moving forward to the 2000s, SD has dropped to roughly 1.5 which tells us that the two hypothetical moms differ by one and a half kids. In other words, families have become more similar in size. They are more and more converging on the number two.

If the kurtosis number is one or greater, that means that the distribution is more peaked than a normal curve. While there is no problem through the 1990s, one appears in the last decade. What this means in plain English is that a lot of women are having two children, and that puts a skyscraper right in the middle of the bell-shaped curve. In the 1970s, 24 percent of women had two children. By 2010, it was 34 percent.

Why am I interested in this? Well for one thing, reduced variation in family size means that people are contributing a more equal amount of genes to the next generation than in the past. A few decades ago, some people would have zero kids, some would have ten. Of course, we still have diversity, but there is greater convergence on having two offspring. If that convergence became complete (it won't) every woman would have two children and would contribute the same number of genes to the next generation. Since almost all children (not including fetuses) nowadays make it to adulthood (thank God), there is even less differential mortality than differential fertility. It looks like the evolutionary process ain't what it used to be.     

But what about the male contribution, you ask. That's next.

Racial/ethnic differences in homosexuality

A reader suggests that homosexuality might be more accepted in the Hispanic community because of a higher prevalence. While working as a teacher, he noticed quite a few effeminate Latino boys.

The GSS asks repondents about the gender of their sexual partners. I calculated for each major racial/ethnic group the percent who are gay or bisexual (i.e., the percent whose sexual partners are exclusively same-sex or who are of both sexes). I combined these two categories to boost sample size.

Percent gay or bisexual

Males (sample size = 7,753)
Whites 3.4
Blacks 4.4
Mex-Ams 4.5

Females (sample size = 8,694)
Whites 2.7
Blacks 3.0
Mex-Ams 1.8

Mex-Ams do have an apparently higher level of male homosexuality, but there are no statistically significant differences among any groups at the 95 percent confidence level. (The sample sizes for minority homosexuals are small.)

The black/Mex-Am female difference is statistically significant at the 90 percent confidence level. Lesbianism seems to rise with the independence/dominance of the females of a racial/ethnic group.

Mexican-American IQ

In a previous post, I used GSS vocabulary data to show a 10 point improvement in IQ among Mexican-Americans over the past four decades.  An increase from 85 and 95 is striking, but I didn't take the time to see if the change is statistically significant.

Setting the white IQ at 100, here are the means by decade for people born in America who are of Mexican descent. Sample sizes are shown in parentheses:

Mean IQ

Seventies 85.4 (12)
Eighties 85.6 (106)
Nineties 91.7* (140)
Two-Thousands 94.1* (182)

*significantly higher than the 80s mean

The means for the Nineties and the Two-Thousands are significantly higher than the Eighties' mean but do not differ significantly from each other. The estimate for the past decade is a bit lower than in my last analysis; this is due to the addition of 2008 data. (The mean for 2010 is 91.6, n = 46.)

A mean in the low nineties is not inconsistent with published studies. The low mean of 85 observed in the 1970s and 80s might be due to a lower average level of education. The average respondent in a GSS survey is in his mid-40s which means that if he participated in a survey in the 70s or 80s, he would have gone to school in the 1930s and 40s.  

Hispanics are natural social... liberals

Some Republicans claim that immigration from the south is a good thing since Hispanics are natural social conservatives. Just the other day Rick Santorum was arguing on Fox that emphasizing social conservatism is an essential way to attract Latino voters.

Such a view is just plain idiotic. I regularly check attitude surveys and cannot remember the last time I saw Hispanics with more socially conservative views than whites. Here is the latest from Pew:

The share of Hispanics who think homosexuality should be accepted is six points higher than the white number. Latinos line-up closely with self-described Democrats. They are almost 30 points away from conservative Republicans.

You might have expected their Catholicism to shift them right. But look at the Catholic estimate: 64 percent feel that homosexuality should be accepted. There is a huge gap between Catholic doctrine and social reality.

Liberals are not smart, but they are geniuses compared to Republican leaders. They know that, chances are, each new Hispanic citizen is a new Democrat. And that ain't gonna change.