Eric D. Hill

Religion and Intergroup Conflict Findings From the Global Group Relations Project

How might religion shape intergroup conflict? We tested whether religious infusion—the extent to which religious rituals and discourse permeate the everyday activities of groups and their members—moderated the effects of two factors known to increase intergroup conflict: competition for limited resources and incompatibility of values held by potentially conflicting groups. We used data from the Global Group Relations Project to investigate 194 groups (e.g., ethnic, religious, national) at 97 sites around the world. When religion was infused in group life, groups were especially prejudiced against those groups that held incompatible values, and they were likely to discriminate against such groups. Moreover, whereas disadvantaged groups with low levels of religious infusion typically avoided directing aggression against their resource-rich and powerful counterparts, disadvantaged groups with high levels of religious infusion directed significant aggression against them—despite the significant tangible costs to the disadvantaged groups potentially posed by enacting such aggression. This research suggests mechanisms through which religion may increase intergroup conflict and introduces an innovative method for performing nuanced, cross-societal research.

Race as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Religiosity and Political Alignment

Religiosity, especially religious fundamentalism, is often assumed to have an inherent connection with conservative politics. This article proposes that the relationship varies by race in the United States. In Study 1, race moderated the relationships between religiosity indicators and political alignment in a nationally representative sample. In Study 2, the effect replicated in a student sample with more reliable measures. Among both Black and Latino Americans, the relationship between religiosity and conservative politics is far weaker than it is among White Americans, and it is sometimes altogether absent. In Study 3, a tradition-focused view of religion was found to more strongly mediate the link between religiosity and political attitudes among Whites than it did among Blacks and Latinos. It is argued that the relationship between religiosity and political alignment is best understood as a product of cultural—historical conditions associated with group memberships.

Mediators of the shame-guilt-psychological adjustment relationship

A college student sample (109 women, 90 men) was administered measures of psychological adjustment, shame, guilt, personal fear of invalidity, and aspects of empathy, including personal distress in emergencies and fantasy involvement. Consistent with previous studies, shame but not guilt was significantly positively correlated with poor psychological adjustment. Path analyses with bootstrapped mediation tests indicated that the shame-adjustment relationship was significantly mediated by fear of invalidity, personal distress, and fantasy involvement. A novel finding was that the relationship between guilt and maladjustment was significantly mediated by proneness to fantasy. The findings are discussed in terms of an integrated theory of the shame-fear/distress-maladjustment relationship as a framework for understanding the maladaptive, individualistic shame experience.

Validation of the Narrative Emplotment Scale and its correlations with well‐being and psychological adjustment

Two studies examined correlates of the Narrative Emplotment Scale (NES), which measures the extent to which individuals perceive chance events and unchosen experiences as meaningfully connected. In Study 1 (N=99), the NES demonstrated adequate test-retest stability and good internal reliability. The scale was positively related to paranormal beliefs, mystical experiences, and absorption. In Study 2 (N=342), personality measures indicative of external locus of control, intrinsic religiosity, well-being, satisfaction with life, and a measure of frequency of coincidence experience were all positively correlated with narrative emplotment, providing further support for the construct validity of the scale. In terms of the question of whether meaning making is predictive of better or worse psychological adjustment, analyses indicated that the relationship between narrative emplotment and psychological adjustment was moderated by individual differences in coping strategies. Path analysis indicated that emplotment was a mediator of the pathway between religiosity and well-being. Emplotment had a negative effect on well-being through chance locus of control. These analyses suggest that this type of meaning-making is an important variable for understanding religious/spiritual beliefs and their influence on psychological adjustment.

Vomiting in Wild Bonnet Macaques

Researchers have not studied vomiting that is not associated with pathological behavior in nonhuman primates. Scientists generally assume that vomiting provides protection by ejecting toxins from the body, but the explanation is not fully supported by the literature. We report on 163 instances of vomiting from 2 groups of free-ranging bonnet macaques in southern India. The macaques routinely reingested their vomit. The reingestion was unlike that in abnormal behavior of both humans and nonhuman primates. We suggest that the tendency to hoard food in their cheek pouches explains why they reingested the vomit.

Examining the Link Between Socioeconomic Status and Mental Illness Prejudice: The Roles of Knowledge About Mental Illness and Empathy.

Unlike people suffering from most physical afflictions, those with mental illness often face prejudice. This study examines the interplay of several key social and personal predictors of mental illness prejudice: SES, empathy, mental illness knowledge, and personal acquaintance with the mentally ill. As expected, analyses showed that higher subjective (although not objective) SES, lower levels of empathy, and lower levels of knowledge about mental illness all predicted increased prejudice against people suffering from clinical depression and nondescript mental illness—although not against people suffering from schizophrenia. Path analyses showed evidence for a mediating role of knowledge and empathy in the link between SES and prejudice. Implications of these findings for ways to diffuse mental illness prejudice are discussed.

Abstract: Propensity Score Matching in a Meta-Analysis Comparing Randomized and Non-Randomized Studies

Propensity Score Matching in a Meta-Analysis Comparing Randomized and Non-Randomized Studies