Religious Commitment and Conservatism: Toward Understanding an Elusive Relationship

Abstract

Gorsuch and Aleshire (1974) have advanced theoretical ideas to explain recurring findings in research which has examined relationships between religiosity and racial conservatism. In this paper, it is argued that these ideas are relevant to understanding not only religion's relationship to racial conservatism, but to other types of conservatism as well. Using a sample of Catholics, eight hypotheses are tested which link several different types of conservatism to a measure of religiosity which can be implicated as an independent variable by Gorsuch and Aleshires' formulation. This variable had the predicted effect on each of the conservatism measures. Several other religiosity measures had inconsistent or inconsequential effects. The implications these findings have for Gorsuch and Aleshires' formulation are discussed.