This study investigated the nature and extent of spousal abuse among the different sexes, social classes, religious and non-religious families in Zimbabwe. Five types of spousal abuse were considered: physical, emotional, economical, sexual and psychological. The relationships between these types of spousal abuse by gender, social class and religious affiliation were tested. A total of 130 info...

We analyzed the impact of religious affiliation on the ethical and environmental values of Spanish environmental activists, based on an internet survey and a working seminar held with representatives of major environmental non-government organizations (ENGO) of Spain. Respondents’ religious affiliations were significantly different compared with those of Spanish society in general, with a much ...

OBJECTIVE to investigate the use of religious/spiritual coping among people with cancer undergoing chemotherapy. METHODS a quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional study of 101 patients undergoing intravenous chemotherapy in an oncology outpatients center in a public hospital in Minas Gerais, made in the first semester of 2011. For data collection, an interview was held, using a question...

When groups compete for members, the resulting dynamics of human social activity may be understandable with simple mathematical models. Here, we apply techniques from dynamical systems and perturbation theory to analyze a theoretical framework for the growth and decline of competing social groups. We present a new treatment of the competition for adherents between religious and irreligious segm...

Suicide terrorism has become an increasingly popular tactic used predominantly by religiously motivated sub-state groups. This suggests that such organizations are particularly successful in using suicide terrorism while maintaining (and perhaps increasing) their popular support. This success could be a product of devotion to specific religious creeds (Hypothesis 1) or of devotion to the collec...

In Zambia, circumcision is traditionally practiced on a large scale only in North-Western Province, an area with one of the lowest HIV rates in Zambia. Few ethnic groups in Zambia conduct male circumcision as a part of religious and cultural practices. The Luvale and Lunda of Northwestern Province practice traditional universal male circumcision, though there are small groups who also practice ...

Background: While religious beliefs and values influence health behaviors, conventional health disparities research rarely examines health outcomes by religious affiliation particularly within multi-ethnic minority communities. Methods: Using a systematic strategy we searched the Medline literature to identify empiric studies that report on health disparities between American Muslims and nonMus...

This study uses General Social Survey data to compare gender and homosexuality across American religious groups from the 1970s to 2014, examining three possible patterns for how evangelical attitudes relate to those of other groups: (1) they are similar; (2) they are different, but move together over time; (3) they are different and converge or diverge over time. Evangelical gender attitudes re...

This study verifies the psychometric properties of the Santa Clara Strength of Religious Faith Questionnaire (SCSORFQ). This measure consists of 10 items regarding strength of religious faith, regardless of religious denomination or affiliation. Participants were 177 students from Chile and 393 students from Poland. The SCSORFQ method is a reliable measure with good internal consistency evaluat...

We describe here a new measure of religious commitment, the Belief into Action (BIAC) scale. This measure was designed to be a comprehensive and sensitive measure of religious involvement that could discriminate individuals across the religious spectrum, and avoid the problem of ceiling effects that have haunted the study of highly-religious populations. Many scales assess religious beliefs, wh...