2 discussion, 150 words each, 4 hrs

Deprivation, Compensation, and Conceptions of an Afterlife Author(s): Charles P. Flynn and Suzanne R. Kunkel Source: Sociological Analysis, Vol. 48, No. 1 (Spring, 1987), pp. 58-72 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3711683 Accessed: 02-05-2019 08:06 UTC

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Sociological Analysis 1987, 48, 1:58-72

Deprivation, Compensation, And Conceptions of an Afterlife

Charles P. Flynn

Suzanne R. Kunkel

Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

The Stark-Bainbridge model of religion as compensation was investigated

empirically using data on conceptions of the afterlife from the General Social

Surveys. Afterlife conceptions were factor analyzed, with several found to be

compensatory, and others non-compensatory. Analyses were undertaken to deter-

mine if particular kinds of compensations afforded by compensatory afterlife

beliefs were associated with particular kinds of deprivations, including low

socioeconomic status, loss of loved ones, and traumatic events in respondents' lives. The findings showed limited support for the compensation model, but the

relationships between compensatory afterlife conceptions and particular depri-

vations were neither as undimensional nor as uniform as the Stark-Bainbridge

model would suggest. It is concluded that the Stark-Bainbridge model does not

provide a definitive explanation of how religious beliefs provide rewards that

compensate for various kinds of deprivations.

The view that religious belief and commitment can be explained by various

factors extrinsic to religion has had a long and multivariegated history. Feuerbach

(1845, 1857) provided the foundations for most later compensatory models of

religiosity with his view of God and other supernaturalistic conceptions as projec-

tions of human needs. Marx's noted conception of religion as the "opiate of the

masses" extends and specifies this by asserting that belief in the supernatural as- suages the miseries of victims of class exploitation, oppression, and alienation by the promise of a reward-filled, status-inverted afterlife. Freud ([1927] 1961) further

elaborated the concept of religion as projection with his view that God, and by

extension all supernaturalistic beliefs, are manifestations of childhood anxieties

alleviated by an all-powerful father figure, while Durkheim (1915) focused on

religion's provision of moral and social cohesion.

More recently, various scholars have elaborated the central idea of religion as a

projection of human need into theories that relate specific kinds of needs to particular

religious belief systems. Glock and Stark (1965) contend that new religious move-

ments derive from five basic kinds of deprivation: economic, social, organismic,

58

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DEPRIVATION, COMPENSATION, AND CONCEPTIONS OF AN AFTERLIFE 59

ethical, and psychic. Religious belief and commitment are seen as related to the needs of those who, for whatever reasons, are unable to satisfy such needs in non- religious ways. New religious movements arise to meet such needs. Thus, for example, those for whom medical cures and other secular sources of relief and cure for chronic ailments or illness prove inadequate may turn to various kinds of reli- gions, such as Christian Science, that emphasize faith-healing. Likewise, those unable to find meaning and purpose in secular ways (ethical deprivation) may find answers in religious movements, such as the Unification Church, that aim at total transformation. Moreover, such figures as Reverend Ike, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Unity stress ideas and beliefs related, respectively, to peoples' economic, social, and psychic deprivations.

Though distinct in several respects from the Glock-Stark theory, a more recent (1980) approach by Stark and Bainbridge incorporates the former and, in effect, reverses the deprivation model by asserting that religious belief and commitment provide positive rewards rather than merely meeting needs engendered by depriva- tion. The Stark-Bainbridge Compensation Theory of Religious Commitment (abbre- viated hereafter as the SBCT) implicitly incorporates not only the Glock-Stark deprivation theory but also previous reductionistic theories into a more general model positing that religious belief and commitments provide supernatural compen- sation for various kinds of rewards which, for a variety of reasons, are unavailable or unobtainable by secular means. Though its links with other theories are not expli- cated by the authors, the SBCT can be regarded as a specification of Merton's (1957) anomie theory in that religion is implicitly seen in the SBCT as an innovative response to the need to find alternative means to attain socially and culturally prescribed rewards.

In this paper, we aim to test empirically the extent to which the SBCT, as perhaps the most current and incorporative of the existing "reductionistic" models, is relevant to explaining one particular aspect of religious belief-conceptions of an afterlife-and how these conceptions may provide various kinds of compensatory rewards for those who logically might be regarded as requiring religious compensa- tions.

CONCEPTIONS OF THE AFTERLIFE AS COMPENSAIORS

The SBCT is very inclusive in that its central concept of religious belief and commitment as both compensation and reward is more generalized than the Glock- Stark deprivation model. Instead of positing specific kinds of deprivations being met by particular kinds of religious beliefs and commitment, the SBCT views the need for compensation and reward as an aspect of the universal human condition, at least with respect to that most basic of all deprivations-death. As Stark and Bainbridge put it,

All societies use compensators. Perhaps the most universal is some promise of a triumph over death. If means were provided to evade death here and now, that

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60 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

would be a reward. But at present, immortality is to be achieved somewhere (somewhen?) else, and the validity of the promise cannot be determined. Thus the desire for immortality is not satisfied with a reward, but with an intangible promise, a compensator. The validity of this promise cannot be determined empirically, but must be accepted or rejected on faith alone (1980: 121-122).

In terms of the earlier Glock-Stark model, death is, of course, the ultimate organismic deprivation. In terms of the SBCT, religious belief in immortality fulfills the function of meeting a particular kind of deprivation with a supernatural compen- sator. Central to whether or not religious belief provides either compensation for deprivation or reward is the content of the belief. The afterlife has been conceived of in countless ways throughout human history; this paper could not even begin to summarize these conceptions in any adequate way. Our examination of the content of afterlife beliefs is based on national data, available for the first time, in 1983 from the

General Social Surveys (GSS).

HYPOTHESES

Stark and Bainbridge suggest that power-giving attributes such as SES should show no relationship to accepting compensators when no reward is known to exist, such as life after death (1980:127). Thus, one would expect no relationship between SES and general belief in an afterlife. However, as noted earlier, there are countless specific conceptions of the afterlife. We propose that some of these conceptions are more explicitly "rewarding" and compensatory than others. Logically, it would seem that compensators and rewards in the form of reward-oriented conceptions of the afterlife would be most desirable among those who:

1. following the Glock-Stark model, either lack or feel themselves to be de- prived of social status, economic rewards, and/or personal fulfillment.

2. have experienced particular kinds of deprivations, such as the loss a job and/ or other kinds of personal tragedies, such as loss of a spouse.

Data relevant to such forms of deprivation are also available in the GSS, from questions asking whether or not respondents have, during either the last year or the past five years, experienced the loss of a job, the death of a spouse, and other misfortunes. Data are, of course, also available for more standard measures such as SES and general levels of religious commitment and belief.

In order to test empirically central propositions of both the Glock-Stark depriva- tion theory and the SBWC, five general hypotheses were derived from these theories. First, it is hypothesized that there is no relationship between SES and belief in an afterlife. Second, it is hypothesized that afterlife conceptions are multidimensional that some beliefs about the nature of life after death are more clearly compensatory than others. Third, it is assumed on the basis of the explicit and implicit assumptions underlying these theories that the lower the SES of the respondents, the lower the

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DEPRIVATION, COMPENSATION, AND CONCEPTIONS OF AN AFTERLIFE 61

capacity they have to obtain desirable rewards. Hence, it is hypothesized that there is

an inverse relationship between SES and tendencies to believe in a reward-filled

afterlife. Fourth, and more specifically, we hypothesize that since satisfaction with

one's financial condition, irrespective of one's actual financial situation, is related to

need for compensation, degree of financial satisfaction should be related inversely to

belief in a reward-filled afterlife. Fifth, following both the Glock-Stark model and

the SBCT, the experience of personal trauma such a loss of job or death in one's

family should lead logically to greater needs for compensation; we hypothesize a

positive relationship between the incidence of trauma and specific types of compen-

satory afterlife conceptions.

METHOD

The 1983 General Social Survey included, for the first time, questions pertain-

ing not only to whether or not one believes in an afterlife, but, if so, the kind of

conceptions respondents hold of life after death. These hitherto unavailable national

sample data afford a significant empirical basis upon which to investigate the extent

to which various conceptions of the afterlife are related to specific kinds of depriva-

tions and, hence, assumed propensities toward needs for supernaturalistic compensa-

tors and rewards.

The variables analyzed in the tests of these hypotheses include belief in an

afterlife (yes or no), and views of the nature of the afterlife for those who believe in

some form of life after death. Those who indicated they did believe in an afterlife were asked to rate how likely (very likely, somewhat likely, somewhat unlikely, very

unlikely) various conceptions of the afterlife seem to them. "Don't know" responses were treated as missing, so the exact sample size rating the likelihood of each afterlife

conception varied for each item; N ranged from 1103 to 1170. The views of the

afterlife rated by respondents were:

1. a life of peace and tranquility

2. a life of intense action

3. a life like here on earth, only better

4. a life without many earthly joys

5. a pale, shadowy form of life

6. a spiritual life involving mind, not body

7. a paradise of pleasure and delight

8. a place of loving intellectual communion

9. union with God

10. reunion with loved ones

These conceptions were factor-analyzed as an initial examination of the hypoth- esis that some afterlife conceptions are more compensatory and/or rewarding than

others.

The other variables include the components of socioeconomic status (income,

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62 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

education, and occupational prestige), degree of satisfaction with current financial situation, and several measures of personal trauma (death of spouse, hospitalization! disability, and a number of recent social or economic problems, including divorce and unemployment). Respondents were asked if these had occurred within the past year, or in the past five years.

Initial frequencies revealed that responses on the afterlife conceptions did not, in most cases, approach normal distribution. Given the ordinal level of measurement of most of the dependent variables, the non-normal distribution of responses, and the exploratory nature of this study, analyses were generally limited to cross tabulations, chi-square tests of significance, and gamma (a measure of association appropriate for ordinal level data.)

RESULTS

The factor analysis of the ten afterlife conception items revealed three dimen- sions of belief in the afterlife, as is apparent in the factor structure in Table I.

TABLE 1

ROTATED FACTOR MATRIX OF AFTERLIFE CONCEPTIONS

Factor

Afterlife conceptions 1 2 3

1. Life of peace and tranquility .74 .08 .07

2. Life of intense action .04 .76 .01

3. Like here on earth, only better .04 .70 .16

4. Life without many earthly joys .03 .26 .64

5. Pale, shadowy form of life .16 .08 .78

6. Spiritual life involving mind, not body .28 .309 .62

7. Paradise of pleasure and delight .51 .44 .02

8. Place of loving intellectual communion .70 .27 .02

9. Union with God .77 .07 .05

10. Reunion with loved ones .70 .06 .02

Factor 1, which we term Otherworldly Reward Compensators, clearly reflects a view of the afterlife as consisting of intangible spiritual rewards, emphasizing seren-

ity, pleasure, union with God, and reunion with loved ones (items 1, 8, 9, and 10). Factor 2, which we shall call World-Reward Equivalents, seems also to suggest a compensatory view of life after death, but differs from Factor 1 in that it is a more earthbound conception, emphasizing action (item 2) and similarity to, but improve-

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DEPRIVATION, COMPENSATION, AND CONCEPTIONS OF AN AFTERLIFE 63

ment upon, life on earth (item 3). Item 7 (view of the afterlife as a paradise of pleasure and delight) loaded on this factor with almost equal strength to its loading on factor 1. Because of its connotations of earthly rewards, it was considered to contribute to Factor 2. Factor 3, Non-compensatory Conceptions, is a view of the afterlife as shadowy and relatively joyless.

The component variables of the three factors were analyzed in an examination of the hypotheses that strength of belief in a reward-filled afterlife is related inversely to

SES and positively to personal traumas. In addition, the relationships of the three factors to SES was analyzed. The results of these analyses on the factor component variables are discussed in the following sections.

SES AND BELIEF IN A COMPENSA7TRY AFTERLIFE

For the purposes of this study, SES was computed as an unweighted combination of educational attainment, occupational prestige, and income. SES scores were then recoded, for tabular analyses, into seven categories, with 1 the lowest SES category and 7 the highest. A second indicator of socioeconomic position was used: satisfac- tion with financial condition. Respondents were asked to rate themselves as pretty well satisfied, more or less satisfied, or not at all satisfied with their present financial

situation. The results of the analyses on SES and belief in a compensatory afterlife are summarized in Table 2.

There is no significant association between SES and belief in an afterlife: about 75 to 80% of individuals in all SES categories believe in life after death. Clearly, factors other than SES influence one's conviction that there is or is not some form of life after death. However, an overview of the findings on SES and specific concep- tions of the afterlife provide some empirical support for the notion that belief in a reward-filled afterlife is more typical of those with fewer social and economic rewards in this life. The percentage believing in an afterlife of "pleasures and delights" (a very clear and direct expression of the compensatory view) increases as SES decreases. However, it is important to note that the tabular results suggest the inverse relationship is not monotonically linear. Similarly, those in the lower SES categories were more likely to believe in both of the "earthbound" compensatory items, i.e., to see the afterlife as a life of intense action, and as similar to life on earth, only better.

On several other items, there was virtually no variation by SES: almost everyone believed that the afterlife would involve union with God, a peaceful and tranquil life, and reunion with loved ones; similarly, the majority in all SES categories believed that life after death would be spiritual, involving the mind and not the body in a loving communion.

There was a significant association between SES and the view of life after death as being "without many earthly joys." The association noted between this distinctly non-compensatory item and SES is contrary to expectations: those in lower SES categories were more likely to believe in an afterlife without earthly joys. It was expected that those with lower SES would be less likely (or at least no more likely) to

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64 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

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DEPRIVATION, COMPENSATION, AND CONCEPTIONS OF AN AFrERLIFE 65

hold non-compensatory views of life after death. To examine this unexpected finding further, we took a closer look at those individuals with low SES who expected the afterlife to be relatively joyless. We hypothesized that perhaps these individuals were

retreatists, as defined by Merton (1975), who were rejecting culturally defined goals as a way of dealing with frustration over being unable to attain such goals. These individuals might expect the afterlife to be as unrewarding as their lives here; thus, these individuals who have failed to attain high levels of social and economic success

expect the afterlife to be relatively joyless. To test the notion that these possible retreatists are an identifiable and unique group, those individuals with low SES who

also held the non-compensatory belief in an afterlife without earthly joys were compared to those low SES scorers who held other afterlife conceptions. Those who

believed in a joyless afterlife were significantly more likely to believe in a pale, shadowy afterlife (84.7% v. 75.9%, p = .02). These findings provide some support for the existence of a subgroup of those with low SES who translate their frustration

over minimal success in attaining socioeconomic goals into a negative conception of the afterlife.

In sum, the relationship of SES to various conceptions of the afterlife were

somewhat inconsistent, expected relationships were not always confirmed by the

data, and those that were supported were not always linear. The strongest support for

the hypotheses is the relationship between SES and belief in the world compensator

items (paradise of pleasure and delight, life of intense action, and like here only better). As noted, these relationships were not always linear and consistent. The lack

of strong, consistent linear relationships between the afterlife conceptions and SES is reflected in the Pearson correlations between the three factors and SES. The other-

worldly compensatory factor was not significantly related to SES. The worldly compensatory factor and the non-compensatory factor showed statistically signifi-

cant but very weak (and therefore theoretically insubstantial) relationships to SES of .15 and .07 respectively.

The findings on the relationship between belief in afterlife conceptions and

satisfaction with financial situation exhibit essentially the same pattern as SES and afterlife beliefs (see Table 3).

The degree of financial satisfaction introduced no significant variations in the proportions who view the afterlife as compensatory, as opposed to those with non-

compensatory views. There were, however, significant associations between finan- cial satisfaction and some of the compensatory items. Those less satisfied with their financial situation were more likely to believe in an afterlife of intense action, and a paradise of pleasure and delight.

In all, there was little sample variation on other items. Virtually identical percentages in each category of financial satisfaction regarded the afterlife as involv-

ing the mind and not the body, union with God, reunion with God, peace and tranquility, and loving intellectual communion.

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66 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

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DEPRIVATION, COMPENSATION, AND CONCEPTIONS OF AN AFTERLIFE 67

PERSONAL TRAUMA AND BELIEF IN A COMPENSATORY AFTERLIFE

In order to examine the hypothesis that belief in a reward-filled afterlife in-

creases with the amount of personal losses and rewards, several indicators of per- sonal trauma were included: death of spouse (no, in the past five years, or six or more years ago), number of traumatic events happening to respondent last year (deaths, divorces, unemployments, and hospitalizations/disabilities), during the last five years (none, prior to last year, last year, during both periods). The findings on

the relationship of these variables to conceptions of the afterlife are given in Tables 4, 5, and 6.

None of the personal trauma indicators are significantly related to overall belief in the afterlife: these are not the factors which determine whether or not one believes

in some form of the afterlife. Likewise, as with SES, the proportions believing in many of the afterlife conceptions did not vary with personal trauma. Virtually identical proportions, for example, saw the afterlife as involving loving intellectual communion, union with God, and reunion with loved ones regardless of personal trauma.

There are, however, some notable exceptions, which provide some support for the hypothesis that a compensatory afterlife is more appealing to those who have suffered trauma. Those respondents who had experienced social and/or economic trauma (unemployment, divorce, etc.) in the past year are more likely to believe in an afterlife of intense action (42% one trauma, 37.3% two or more traumas) and in an afterlife of pleasure and delight (67.4% one trauma, 70.1 two or more) than those who had not (32.9% and 59.8% respectively) experienced any traumas.

Respondents who had experienced hospitalization/disability were more likely to believe in an afterlife of intense action that those who had not been hospitalized or disabled. Hospitalization/disability is associated in a complex way with belief in a spiritual afterlife. Those who had experienced this event in the four years prior to last

year were the most likely to believe in an afterlife involving the mind and not the body (85.2%), while those who had been hospitalized or disabled in the last year were the least likely to believe in a spiritual afterlife (70.9%). Perhaps the recency of the physical problem encourages more of these individuals to believe in an afterlife where they will have a healthy physical body. Since there is no information on the nature and/or duration of the hospitalizations and disabilities reported by the respon- dents, however, such interpretations must be made with caution.

A similar complex pattern of association was noted between hospitalization/ disability and belief in reunion with loved ones in the afterlife. Those with recent hospitalization or disability were least likely (90.4%) to hold this notion, while those who had experienced these events in the four years prior were the most likely to believe it (97.8%). While the Chi Square probability of .016 suggests that this pattern is significantly different from expectations based on no association between the variables, the percentages who hold this view of the afterlife are all very high, and the differences may not be theoretically significant.

Death of spouse is significantly associated with belief in an afterlife of pleasure and delight: those who had not experienced death of a spouse were much less likely to believe this paradisical view of life after death (61 % v. 78% and 74%, respec-

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68 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

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DEPRIVATION, COMPENSATION, AND CONCEPTIONS OF AN AFTERLIFE 69

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70 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

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DEPRIVATION, COMPENSATION, AND CONCEPTIONS OF AN AFTERLIFE 71

tively). The gamma of -.35 for this association suggests that this is a fairly strong relationship. This finding confirms the notion that this kind of personal loss involv- ing death is associated with a compensatory afterlife. Contrary to expectations, however, death of spouse is not associated with belief that the afterlife involves a

reunion with loved ones. Over 90% of all respondents who believe in an afterlife

hold this belief, and loss of spouse does not seem to alter the prevalence of this view.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

The Glock-Stark deprivation theory and the SBCT both, as we have seen, suggest that religious belief provides both substitutes for secular deprivations, and compensations and rewards. Our findings provide some support for these ap- proaches, but the relationships are neither as uniform nor as simple as the theories might seem to suggest. First, as Stark and Bainbridge (1980) proposed, SES is not related significantly to belief in an afterlife; overall, socioeconomic disadvantage and

deprivation is not a root "cause" of belief in an afterlife; the well-off are as likely to believe in an afterlife as the less privileged, because, according to the SBCT model, life after death is an instance where no known reward exists. Thus, the Marxian

notion of religion, at least with regard to belief in an afterlife, as as overall "opiate" is not supported by our data and analyses.

The second proposition addressed in this paper, that some afterlife conceptions are more rewarding and compensatory than others, received some support in that an

exploratory factor analysis revealed three factors. One of the factors was most

strongly related to those items that were suggestive of worldly reward equivalents.

Clearly exploratory factor analysis cannot be taken as an explicit test of the multidi-

mensionality proposition. EFA is not an hypothesis-testing technique. A logical step to be taken in this direction is confirmatory factor analysis, in which the multidimen-

sional model, with its distinct world-reward-equivalent dimension, can be tested for

its fit to the data and for its improvement in fit over a single-dimension model. With respect to our other hypotheses, the data do show some relationships

between socioeconomic deprivations and personal traumas and certain specific con- ceptions of what the afterlife would be like. Most notably, our data and analyses show consistent relationships between belief in an afterlife that is a paradise of pleasure and delights with low SES and with high incidence of personal trauma, which clearly supports the Stark-Bainbridge compensation theory. In addition, the

consistent relationship between low SES and high level of personal trauma, and tendency to believe in an afterlife of intense action suggests a factor not fully

accounted for in either the Glock-Stark model or the SBCT-that one response to

personal disadvantage or trauma might be that one desires a "second chance" to prove his/her personal efficacy, competence, and ability to achieve. Or, it may be, as a possible corollary of the SBCT, that low SES and/or trauma involve substantial inactivity, hence boredom, and that a belief in an afterlife of intense action is one way of dealing with this.

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72 SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

REFERENCES

Durkheim, Emile. 1915 (1965). The Elementary Forms of the Religious Ufe. New York: Free Press. Feuerbach, Ludwig. 1845 (1957). The Essence of Christianity. New York: Harper. Freud, Sigmund. 1927 (1961). The Future of An Illusion. New York: Doubleday. Glock, Charles Y. and Rodney Stark. 1965. Religion and Society in Tension. Chicago: Rand McNally. Merton, Robert K. 1957. Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: Free Press. Stark, Rodney and William Sims Bainbridge. 1980. "Towards A Theory of Religion: Religious Commit-

ment." Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 19 (2):114-128.

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