Ranking Churches and Universities

Here in the U.S. we have a yearly ritual. Using such criteria as prestige and faculty productivity, US News & World Report ranks the country's colleges and universities. Shortly thereafter, critics point out the flaws in such rankings, while parents of children about to graduate from high school scoop up the issue of the magazine with the rankings. It is as predictable as Tuesday following Monday.

One reason that the critics decry the rankings is that they do carry weight. The general public, the media, legislators and others scan the magazine to see where their favored schools fall in the rankings. Time and again, university presidents and administrators who just a few years earlier criticized the rankings, point with pride to the fact that their school gained standing and they claim that it was through their hard work that the quality of education has improved. It happens as dependably as sunrise and sunset.

Charlie Clark has written one of the most entertaining commentaries I have ever read on this ritual, published at Inside Higher Ed. He imagines what he would write as the editor of US News defending the practice applied to another nonprofit institution: churches. The result is excellent, and perfect reading for a Friday afternoon at the end of the semester. Enjoy!

Pathways of Hope and Faith Among Hispanic Teens

Those interested in religious youth work with Hispanic teenagers in the U.S. should be aware that the Instituto Fe y Vida of Stockton, CA has recently published a major book on the subject, which is based primarily on NSYR research findings. The book, Pathways of Hope and Faith Among Hispanic Teens, is edited by Ken Johnson-Mondragon.

Religion can promote honesty

Two recent studies by Brandon Randolph-Seng and myself found that being reminded of religion can promote honesty. They are published in the current issue of The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion. The general format of the research involved first "priming" people with either religious words or nonreligious words, then giving them another task to perform. In Study 1, the priming involved a 'scrambled sentence' task, in which the participant unscrambled words in order to make a complete sentence. In Study 2 the priming was done subliminally, or below the threshold of conscious awareness, by displaying the word briefly (80 milliseconds) on a computer screen and then displaying a series of characters (XXXX) for another 100 ms in order to ensure that the image of the word did not persist on the screen. Following the priming task, participants were given an opportunity to complete a task that could easily involve cheating. In both studies, people who had been exposed to the religious words were less likely to cheat than were people exposed to other words. In fact, none of the people exposed to religious words cheated, but nearly half of the people exposed to other words in Study 1 (with the scrambled sentence task) cheated. In Study 2, where words were presented subliminally, 20% cheated in the group exposed to nonreligious words... and once again, none who saw the religious words cheated.

Read more about our project on this pdf copy of the article. If you are interested in this line of research, you'll also want to read this article by Shariff and Norenzayan that found religious priming resulting in increased levels of generosity.

Science, Religion, Education

NOVA, the award-winning program on public television, is broadcasting Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial Tuesday, Nov. 13th at 8:00 p.m. The program examines the intelligent design / evolution controversy in the context of the Dover, Pennsylvania, School Board's decision to mandate a disclaimer be read before every class period involving evolution; the disclaimer stated that "gaps [and] problems" exist in evolution. Science teachers and some townspeople objected, and the case went to court. The trial caught national attention. In the end, Judge Jones ruled that intelligent design "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents." The school board was ordered to pay $1 million in legal fees and damages.

If you are at all interested in science, religion, or education, this sounds like a "must-see" program.

Religion - Prejudice Court Verdict

CNN reports that a Maryland jury has awarded $10.9 million dollars to the father of a soldier whose funeral was picketed by Fred Phelps. I'm sure that we haven't heard the last of this story.