The influence of religion and messages from religious authorities: Attitudes about science and environmental concern

This dissertation explores relationships among religious beliefs and practices, attitudes about science, and environmental concern. Discussions about conflict, separation, or ambivalence between science and religion are as old as science itself, with mixed evidence about the relationships between religion and science. Although there is a general lack of understanding of scientific concepts by the public, correct scientific knowledge of environmental problems is often a key predictor of intentions to behave pro-environmentally. At the same time, religion plays an important part in the daily lives of millions of Americans. If religion plays a role in guiding the lived experiences of adherents, even in the face of increasing secularization, it is important to examine the effects of religion, as well as religious messages, on scientific and environmental matters. The main objectives of this dissertation are to: 1) analyze the ways in which religious affiliation, belief, and commitment characteristics affect attitudes about science in contemporary U.S. society, and 2) analyze how scientifically and religiously framed messages affect specific facets of environmental concern.;This dissertation is based on theoretically driven hypotheses suggested by the current literature, and is organized into three chapters. In the first empirical chapter, I analyze secondary data from the General Social Survey to test hypotheses about the influence of religious affiliation, beliefs, and behavior on attitudes about science. The results of this study provide some evidence that Christians in general have more negative attitudes about science than do non-Christians and non-religious people, but claims about major conflict between science and religion may not accurately describe the U.S. general public. In the second and third essays, I conduct two experiments that test the influence of religious and scientific messages on two specific types of environmental concern in subjects recruited using Amazon Mechanical Turk.;In the second essay, I use structural equation modeling to analyze data from an experiment that examines how scientifically framed and religiously framed messages about water conservation influence attitudes about a proposed policy to restrict water use. Results indicate that Christians are just as likely as non-Christians and non-religious people to agree with a policy calling for water use restrictions. However, among all respondents---and also among Christians---a Christian religious message reduces agreement with the proposed water use restriction policy. These results suggest that religiously framed messages may not significantly increase environmental concern.;In the third essay, I use zero-inflated Poisson regression to analyze data from an experiment that tests the influence of scientifically framed and religiously framed messages about biodiversity loss on the decision to make a donation to an environmental organization that protects against biodiversity loss. Although Christianity does not influence the decision to donate or not, it does affect the amount that donators give; Christians donate less than non-Christians and non-religious subjects. Receiving a religious message has no effect on making a donation or donation amount. Similar to the first experiment, these results suggest that a religiously framed message may not influence this type of donation behavior.