Accordance and conflict between religious and scientific precautions against COVID-19 in 27 societies

Meaning-making systems underlie perceptions of the efficacy of threat-mitigating behaviors. Religion and science both offer threat mitigation, yet these meaning-making systems are often considered incompatible. Do such epistemological conflicts swamp the desire to employ diverse precautions against threats? Or do individuals—particularly individuals who are highly reactive to threats—hedge their bets by using multiple threat-mitigating practices despite their potential epistemological incompatibility? Complicating this question, perceptions of conflict between religion and science likely vary across cultures; likewise, pragmatic features of precautions prescribed by some religions make them incompatible with some scientifically-based precautions. The COVID-19 pandemic elicited diverse precautions thus providing an opportunity to investigate these questions. Across 27 societies from five continents (N = 7,844), in the majority of countries, individuals’ practice of religious precautions such as prayer correlates positively with their use of scientifically-based precautions. Prior work indicates that greater adherence to tradition likely reflects greater reactivity to threats. Unsurprisingly given associations between many traditions and religion, valuing tradition is predictive of employing religious precautions. However, consonant with its association with threat reactivity, we also find that traditionalism predicts adherence to public health precautions—a pattern that underscores threat-avoidant individuals’ apparent tolerance for epistemological conflict in pursuit of safety.

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Publication Details

Journal
Religion Brain & Behavior
Published
2024-09-05
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2024.2363757
Citations
1
Primary Topic
Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.34
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Accordance and conflict between religious and scientific precautions against COVID-19 in 27 societies

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Religion Brain & Behavior
Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
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article

Accordance and conflict between religious and scientific precautions against COVID-19 in 27 societies

Fanny Habacht, Coby Morvinski, Alice Ng’ang’a, Tomasz Jarmakowski, Daniel M. T. Fessler, Aoi Naito, Hugo Viciana, Youssef Hasan, Xiaotian Wang, Pelin Gül, Lene Aarøe, Carmen Gloria Baeza, Stefan Stieger, Junsong Lu, Yaniv Shani, Adam Maxwell Sparks, Leonel Garcia‐Marques, Bernardo Costa-Neves, Maho Kurita, Renatas Berniûnas, Tom R. Kupfer, Peter Fedor, Earl John Hernandez, Shanmukh Vasant Kamble, Lynn K. L. Tan, María Andrée Maegli, Marinés Mejia, Angela Oktavia Suryani, María del Pilar Grazioso, Pavol Prokop, María Teresa Barbato, Tatsuya Kameda, Amandine Visine, Jorge Contreras‐Garduño, Joshua M. Tybur, Colin Holbrook, Pat Barclay, Norman P. Li, Francesca R. Luberti, Regina F. Fernandez, Angélica Nascimento de Oliveira, Bia Kim, Theodore Samore, Pınar Elmas, Walter Omar Paniagua Solorzano, Paulina Giraldo-Perez, Daniel Posner, Ana María Fernández, Jin Wang
article en
1 citations

Abstract

Meaning-making systems underlie perceptions of the efficacy of threat-mitigating behaviors. Religion and science both offer threat mitigation, yet these meaning-making systems are often considered incompatible. Do such epistemological conflicts swamp the desire to employ diverse precautions against threats? Or do individuals—particularly individuals who are highly reactive to threats—hedge their bets by using multiple threat-mitigating practices despite their potential epistemological incompatibility? Complicating this question, perceptions of conflict between religion and science likely vary across cultures; likewise, pragmatic features of precautions prescribed by some religions make them incompatible with some scientifically-based precautions. The COVID-19 pandemic elicited diverse precautions thus providing an opportunity to investigate these questions. Across 27 societies from five continents (N = 7,844), in the majority of countries, individuals’ practice of religious precautions such as prayer correlates positively with their use of scientifically-based precautions. Prior work indicates that greater adherence to tradition likely reflects greater reactivity to threats. Unsurprisingly given associations between many traditions and religion, valuing tradition is predictive of employing religious precautions. However, consonant with its association with threat reactivity, we also find that traditionalism predicts adherence to public health precautions—a pattern that underscores threat-avoidant individuals’ apparent tolerance for epistemological conflict in pursuit of safety.

Religion Brain & BehaviorVol. 15(4)
Universidad de Santiago de Chile (CL), Karnatak University (IN), Tokyo Institute of Technology (JP), Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (IL), Nipissing University (CA), University of Lisbon (PT), Tamagawa University (JP), University of Auckland (NZ), University of California, Merced (US), Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia (ID), University of California, Los Angeles (US), Tel Aviv University (IL), University of Groningen (NL), Vilnius University (LT), Aarhus University (DK), Hokkaido University (JP), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JP), Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK), Institut Agro Montpellier (FR), University of California System (US), Nicolaus Copernicus University (PL), Partido State University (PH), Universidad Rafael Landívar (GT), Institut Agronomique Méditerranéen de Montpellier (FR), Unidade Local de Saúde de São José (PT), Probigua (GT), Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CN), Institute of Psychology (PL), Film Independent (US), Institut Agro Montpelier (FR), Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences (AT), Institute of Zoology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SK), Pusan National University (KR), Universidad Francisco Marroquín (GT), Nottingham Trent University (GB), Qatar University (QA), Comenius University Bratislava (SK), The University of Tokyo (JP), Wilfrid Laurier University (CA), Adnan Menderes University (TR), Universidad de Sevilla (ES), University of Guelph (CA), Singapore Management University (SG), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (MX), Universidad del Valle de Guatemala (GT)
Gender equality
Openalex Percentile: Top 41%
Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
0.34
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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