But it's pretty hard to gauge what that actually means for atheists. Atheists are different from religious people with doubts. Also, many atheists in religious countries find themselves marginalised and excluded.
Luke Galen, a psychologist at Grand Valley State University, has recently completed a study comparing members of the Center For Inquiry (CFI) in Michigan with local Church goers. He recently gave a talk to CFI Michigan, which you can find as a podcast and slides over on the Reasonable Doubt.
The full thing is well worth a listen (if you have a spare hour, as I did on a flight earlier this week!). But for the time pressured, here's what I think is the most interesting take-home.
Atheists in the USA are a pretty reviled group. Perhaps this social exclusion is a contributor to their unhappiness. However, Galen found that, on average, CFI members were as happy as the Church members and in fact probably somewhat above average happiness.
What makes Galen's study interesting is the members of CFI, although mostly atheists, have a social group to give them a bit of positive affirmation and group luvin (if they want it!).
Another key result is shown in the figure. The people with the high emotional stability are those at either extreme of the belief scale. The people with the problem are those in the middle. So it seems that, in this group at least, confident non-believers who have a like-minded peer group have similar emotional characteristics to the confident believers.In other words, it's not the belief or non-belief that counts, it's personal conviction and social recognition that contributes to happiness.
Galen found a number of other interesting differences between the two groups. Compared with the Churchgoers, CFI members were:
- More open to experience
- Less agreeable (i.e. more independent minded, more likely to argue their case and less likely to accept another's views).
- Better educated
- Less conscientious.
Is 'agreeable' really the right word in that context? From the description you give it sounds to me more like 'conciliatory'. But then I don't have a spare hour to listen to the podcast, maybe it's explained there.
ReplyDeleteI've wanted to make a taxonomy of atheists. I wonder how these stats change, depending on the subgroup. For example, you have atheists who:
ReplyDelete1) rebelled from religious parents
2) were raised in a happy family of atheists
3) non-religious family but embraced a religion, only later became atheist
4) left their religion due to tragedy
Just to give a few examples.
Also, I'd imagine most people think the decided to become atheist but actually, they became atheist and their minds made up reasons why. (hmmm, I wonder how many people will follow that).
Charlotte: 'Agreeable' is part of the 'five factor model' of personality - which is these days is the most widely used. Here's a definition:
ReplyDeleteAgreeableness - One’s level of orientation towards other people.
Those who score high on this factor are usually co-operative, can be submissive, and are concerned with the well-being of others. People who score low on this factor may be challenging, competitive, sometimes even argumentative.
Sabio, I get what you mean - they make the decision and then rationalise it afterwards! That's probably true.
ReplyDeleteGalen's data also showed the CFI group to be much more male than the church group. I contend the sex ratio difference alone can explain the apparent "agreeableness" correlation...
ReplyDeleteGood point Diane... but what is the direction of causality?
ReplyDeleteThe reasons women are over-represented amongst the religious and under-represented amongst freethinkers are complex and poorly understood. Many of them I don't like to think about; but to "commit evolutionary psychology," I would suggest that they reflect in part various behavioral strategies that were adaptive for each sex over time...going back to pre-human social mammals...(Sigh.)
ReplyDeleteHi Diane, I agree it's complex, but I think that the causes of overrepresentation of men among the irreligious are largely cultural. If you're interested, I did a 4-part series on this last month (starting here).
ReplyDeleteBut as to the CFI thing, I suspect that CFI (as opposed to atheism in general) attracts people who are less agreeable (i.e. more willing to stand up and say that they disagree with you). Which may mean more men!