Ryan Alan Smith

Although a myriad of cross-national studies featuring European countries, Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the United States, and many other nations around the world support the contention that religiosity is associated with life satisfaction (both positively and negatively), comparatively little is known about this association in Latin America, a continent known for its strong Catholic identification, an emerging evangelical influence, and a multitude of indigenous and non-Western religious traditions. Using unique data from 21 Latin American countries, we begin to fill this gap by addressing three previously unanswered questions. What is the association between religiosity and life satisfaction in Latin America? Which measure of religiosity is most frequently associated with life satisfaction in the region: social religiosity (e.g., frequency of service attendance) or individual religiosity (e.g., importance of religion and religious identification)? Do feelings of life satisfaction vary among religious groups in Latin America? First, our aggregate models suggest a positive association between religious importance and life satisfaction and between service attendance and life satisfaction, but the association between religious identity and life satisfaction is negative. Second, our more nuanced cross-country, comparative analysis reveals that the importance of religion to a respondent (individual religiosity) is more frequently (and positively) associated with life satisfaction across a broader array of Latin American countries than service attendance (social religiosity) and religious identity (individual religiosity), with the latter evincing a negative association with life satisfaction in select countries. Lastly, there is a hierarchy of life satisfaction among religious groups. Evangelicals register higher levels of life satisfaction than Catholics, who tend to have similar levels of life satisfaction to Protestants, mainline Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and members of the Jewish faith. However, Catholics enjoy higher levels of life satisfaction than atheists, agnostics, and adherents of indigenous and African religions (e.g., Candomblé, Umbanda, and Voodoo). We discuss the implications of our findings for future research.

The systematic study of misanthropy, the lack of trust in humanity, has proliferated over the last 30 years. One prominent line of research details racial and ethnic disparities in levels of misanthropy, but pays little attention to the role of religiosity, while another focuses attention on religiosity and its impact on levels of misanthropy, with only scant attention to the role of race and ethnicity. Little attempt has been made to synthesize these two strands of literature to address an important unanswered question: Does the association between religiosity and misanthropy vary by racial and ethnic group? To answer this question, we pooled data from the General Social Survey (GSS, 2000–2018). Among other things, we find stark racial differences between Blacks and Whites in terms of the effect of religiosity on misanthropy. Blacks and Latinos who attend religious services weekly (social religiosity) have significantly higher levels of misanthropy than others, while Whites who attend weekly services are less likely to be misanthropic. An important takeaway is that service attendance (a type of social capital) is associated with feelings of misanthropy for all groups (albeit in opposite directions for Blacks and Latinos versus Whites), rather than personal acts of prayer (individual religiosity). When it comes to misanthropy, we conclude that religion works differently for minorities compared with Whites. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research.

This article extends Michael L. Radelet’s 1989 study of rare cases in which Whites have been executed for committing capital crimes against Blacks to include an assessment of White executions involving Latinx and Asian victims. The threefold aim is to (1) establish the frequency of such rare cases, and (2) explore the extent to which status characteristics (beyond race, ethnicity or gender) are present for these rare events; and (3) offer social dominance theory as a viable explanation for the patterns found in the data. An analysis of unique data from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows that out of 570 executions imposed between April 1982 and July 2020, only six cases led to the execution of Whites for crimes against Blacks (1.1%), sixteen cases for crimes against Hispanics (2.8%), and one case for crimes against an Asian American (0.18%). Beyond the minority status of the victim, two or more status markers were present when Whites were executed for crimes against people of color. The results, which are consistent with expectations drawn from social dominance theory, highlight the differential value placed on minority lives and call into question the legitimacy of the death penalty in the United States.

This article examines (1) how offenders (i.e., death row inmates) express forgiveness at the moment of imminent death, (2) why certain expressions of forgiveness are used more frequently than others, and (3) whether there is any change over time in the hierarchy of preferred forgiveness expressions. Offenders frame forgiveness in religious terms for the most part and they prioritize forgiveness primarily by seeking religious forgiveness from others, and secondarily by seeking forgiveness from God for themselves. From there, a declining share of offenders use their final words to forgive others (religious context), and seek forgiveness from others (religious context). Religious coping theory explains this hierarchy as essentially an attempt to gain intimacy with others, followed by a need to establish control and gain comfort and closeness to God. The few nonreligious attempts to seek forgiveness from others are interpreted as efforts to gain empathy with one's victims, express adaptive guilt, and engage behaviors of reparative action, while nonreligious attempts to offer forgiveness to others are interpreted as efforts to enhance psychological well-being. Analysis of change over time reveals an increase in expressions of religious forgiveness that parallels the implementation of policies that allow the family and friends of murder victims to witness an offender's execution. The implications of these findings for the future study of forgiveness are discussed.