Furthermore, in June 2008, the Pew Forum on Religion in Public Life issued their "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey," based on "interviews with more than 36,000 Americans." On subject after subject, it was found that the more religious a person was, the more conservative he tended to be. "Almost twice as many people who say religion is very important in their lives are conservative (46%) compared with those for whom religion is less important (25%)." Strikingly, in America, the highest percentages of liberals (respondents who "Lean Democrat") were found in minority religions. 77% of "Hist. black churches" were of this category. 66% of "Buddhist" were. 66% of "Jewish" were. 63% of "Muslim" were. 63% of "Hindu" were. By contrast, 48% of "Catholic" were. 43% of "Mainline churches [Protestant]" were. 34% of "Evangelical churches" were. The most-extreme rightwing Americans were "Mormon," only 22% of whom leaned Democratic. (An article on the Web, "Sampling of Latter-Day Saint/Utah Demographics," notes that on strikingly many demographic variables, Mormons are in the extreme #1 or else in the very last position, as compared to all states or religious groups.) Mormons tended to be concentrated in Utah, where they constituted the overwhelming majority. As a general rule, being conservative went along with being a member of fundamentalistic majoritarian faiths, basically white Christians in the United States. Regarding "Government Assistance for the Poor," the least supportive Americans were Mormons, and then Hindus (their caste system enshrines inequality), followed by white Protestants (equally Evangelical and Mainline). The Americans most supportive of tax-funded assistance to the poor were black Protestants, followed by Muslims and Buddhists, then Jews. One might infer from this study that the more that a given religious believer lives amongst others of her own faith, the more conservative she's likely to be. Perhaps being a minority tends to drive a person to consider other cultures' viewpoints, and not to take Scripture as being quite so infallible. One key question asked of respondents was "When it comes to questions of right and wrong, which of the following do you look to most for guidance?" The group highest citing "Religious teachings and beliefs" were "Jehovah's Witness," followed by "Mormon" and then by "Evangelical." The lowest were "Buddhist," then "Hindu," then "Jewish." This is consistent with people tending to be more skeptical of their Scripture to the extent that they lived and functioned amongst non-believers in that particular Scripture. This is more particularly consistent with Altemeyer's having found that communists in the Soviet Union tended to be highly authoritarian, whereas communists in the U.S. were not. The Scripture in the Soviet Union was Karl Marx, Das Capital. Communism was just an atheistic religion.
"Stagarite" posted at http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/7/12/175319/372, "Literature Review: Authoritarianism," providing a good summary of scientific research (as of 2002) regarding the conservative personality. Bruce A. Robinson posted at http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_prej.htm "The Relationship Between Church Membership and Prejudice," in which a dozen early studies, from the 1940's through the 1960's, examining the relationship between religion and bigotry were referenced. Their general drift, even in those early times, was that people who are more religious were generally also more bigoted.
In September 2006, the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion issued a study, "American Piety in the 21st Century," which contained "Selected Findings from The Baylor Religion Survey." This study claimed to be "the most extensive and sensitive study of religion ever conducted." Under its heading "Religion and Politics" was reported that, among the five listed "Religious Indicators" examined for Christians ("Biblical Literalism," "Religious Attendance," "Evangelical Protestant," "Mainline Protestant," and "Catholic"), overwhelmingly the strongest correlation with conservative political attitudes was fundamentalism ("Biblical Literalism"). Specifically, fundamentalists were far more supportive than anyone else of "Spend more on the military," "[Politically] Advocate Christian values," "Punish criminals more harshly," "Fund faith-based organizations," and "Allow prayer in [public] schools." They were far less supportive than anyone else of "Abolish the death penalty," "Regulate business more closely," and "Protect the environment more." All five categories of Christians opposed "Distribute wealth more evenly"; and three categories of Christians were especially opposed to the proposal to distribute wealth more evenly: (1) Religious Attendance (or frequency of church-attendance), (2) Evangelical Protestant, and (3) Biblical Literalism. This study provided 100% confirmation of the political strategy of prominent American conservative aristocratic families, and of Bush advisor Karl Rove, to seek Republican votes from the most literal, Bible-believing, Christians. Another interesting finding was that, whereas 50% of Christians whose income was under $35,000 described themselves as "Bible Believing," only 38% of Christians whose income was more than $100,000 did. This suggests that, whereas America's rich were overwhelmingly the financiers of the Republican Party, America's poorest (who were strongly Democratic as an entire lot) were still ripe to vote Republican if they belonged to that half of America's poor who view themselves as "Bible Believing."
This review has focused only on personality psychology (otherwise called "social psychology"). In addition, there has recently been research in economics that has provided additional scientific understanding of conservatism, such as I discussed in a recent article, "Breakthrough Study Proves: Good Luck Causes People to Become More Conservative," and there has been research in political science, such as I discussed in "First-Ever Political Study of Top 1% Has Found Extreme Conservatism, Intense Political Involvement." I additionally noted near the end of the latter article that
In two previous articles, "Studies Find that Conservatives Are Bad People, And That Successful People Tend to Be Bad," and "The Rich and Educated Believe Wealth Correlates With Virtue, Says Study," I summarized and linked to nine different research-reports in the social-psychological literature that have produced remarkably similar findings to the findings in this political-science survey. I have not been able to find any studies, in any field, that report contrary results to these. All studies of which I am aware have found that wealth tends to correlate with psychopathy: the rich tend to be much more psychopathic (self-interested at the expense of the public) than the rest of the population; and the richer one is, the more psychopathic one will tend to be.
The research literature that has been summarized in the present article has focused more on the previous phase of the study of conservatism, which examined more the relationship between conservatism and religion, than the relationship between conservatism and wealth. However, we now know that both religiosity and wealth are closely associated with conservatism.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
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