Weber Revisited: A Cross-National Analysis of Religiosity, Religious Culture, and Economic Attitudes
Abstract
Weber’s Protestant Ethic hypothesis holds that elements of theology gave Protestants a cultural affinity with the economic demands of early market capitalism, particularly compared with their Catholic neighbors, which led to more rapid economic development in nations where Protestant culture was dominant. Previous research has found inconsistent support for a Protestant inclination toward pro-market attitudes, depending on whether the level of analysis was at the individual or national level. The present study uses cross-national panel data to combine these approaches with multilevel modeling. Results showed effects at the national level; people living in nations with dominantly Protestant cultural histories had more pro-market economic attitudes. At the individual level, there were differences in the impact of religiosity by religious group affiliation; Protestants had relatively pro-market attitudes regardless of religiosity, while members of other groups tended to increase in market orientation as a function of religiosity. Together, these effects support the existence of a Protestant Ethic that is linked with cultural Protestantism, rather than with personal adherence to specific Protestant religious beliefs.
Get full access to this article
View all access and purchase options for this article.
References
Ali A. J., Al-Owaihan A. (2008). Islamic worth ethic: A critical review. Cross Cultural Management: An International Journal, 15(1), 5-19.
Arslan M. (2001). The work ethic values of Protestant British, Catholic Irish and Muslim Turkish managers. Journal of Business Ethics, 31(4), 321-339.
Baetz M., Bowen R., Jones G., Koru-Sengul T. (2006). How spiritual values and worship attendance relate to psychiatric disorders in the Canadian population. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 51(10), 654-661.
Barro R. J., McCleary R. M. (2003). Religion and economic growth across countries. American Sociological Review, 68(5), 760-781.
Becker S. O., Woessmann L. (2009). Was Weber wrong? A human capital theory of Protestant economic history. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 124(2), 531-596.
Blum U., Dudley L. (2001). Religion and economic growth: Was Weber right? Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 11(2), 207-230.
Burris C. T., Jackson L. M. (2000). Social identity and the true believer: Responses to threatened self-stereotypes among the intrinsically religious. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 257-278.
Christopher A. N., Zabel K. L., Jones J. R., Marek P. (2008). Protestant ethic ideology: Its multifaceted relationships with just world beliefs, social dominance orientation, and right-wing authoritarianism. Personality and Individual Differences, 45(6), 473-477.
Cohen A. B. (2009). Many forms of culture. American Psychologist, 64(3), 194-204.
Elliott M., Hayward R. D. (2009). Religion and life satisfaction worldwide: The role of government regulation. Sociology of Religion, 70(3), 285-310.
Ellison C. G., Flannelly K. J. (2009). Religious involvement and risk of major depression in a prospective nationwide study of African American adults. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 197(8), 568-573.
European Values Study Group & World Values Survey Association. (2009). World Values Survey 1981-2008 official aggregate v.20090901 [data file]. Madrid: ASEP/JDS. Retrieved from http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org
Furnham A. (1984). The protestant work ethic: A review of the psychological literature. European Journal of Social Psychology, 14(1), 87-104.
Furnham A. (1990). The Protestant work ethic: The psychology of work-related beliefs and behaviours. London: Routledge.
Furnham A., Bond M., Heaven P., Hilton D., Lobel T., Masters J., . . . Van Daalen H. (1993). A comparison of Protestant Work Ethic beliefs in thirteen nations. The Journal of Social Psychology, 133(2), 185-197.
Giorgi L., Marsh C. (1990). The Protestant work ethic as a cultural phenomenon. European Journal of Social Psychology, 20(6), 499-517.
Grier R. (1997). The effect of religion on economic development: A cross national study of 63 former colonies. Kyklos, 50(1), 47.
Guiso L., Sapienza P., Zingales L. (2003). People’s opium? Religion and economic attitudes. Journal of Monetary Economics, 50(1), 225-282.
Hayward R. D., Kemmelmeier M. (2007). How competition is viewed across cultures: A test of four theories. Cross-Cultural Research, 41(4), 364-395.
Huntington S. P. (1993). The clash of civilizations. Foreign Affairs, 72(3), 22-49.
Inglehart R. (1977). The silent revolution: Changing values and political styles among Western publics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Inglehart R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Inglehart R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization: Cultural, economic, and political change in 43 societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Inglehart R., Baker W. E. (2000). Modernization, cultural change, and the persistence of traditional values. American Sociological Review, 65(1), 19-51.
Kashy D. A., Kenny D. A. (2000). The analysis of data from dyads and groups. In Reis H. T., Judd C. M. (Eds.), Handbook of research methods in social and personality psychology (pp. 451-477). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Krull J. L., MacKinnon D. P. (2001). Multilevel modeling of individual and group level mediated effects. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 36(2), 249-277.
Lickel B., Hamilton D. L., Wieczorkowska G., Lewis A., Sherman S. J., Uhles A. N. (2000). Varieties of groups and the perception of group entitativity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(2), 223-246.
Lim V. K. G. (2003). Money matters: An empirical investigation of money, face and Confucian work ethic. Personality and Individual Differences, 35(4), 953-970.
Martin K., Levy B. (2006). Opposing trends of religious attendance and religiosity in predicting elders’ functional recovery after an acute myocardial infarction. Journal of Religion and Health, 45(3), 440-451.
McCleary R. M., Barro R. J. (2006). Religion and economy. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(2), 49-72.
Miller M. J., Woehr D. J., Hudspeth N. (2001). The meaning and measurement of work ethic: Construction and initial validation of a multidimensional inventory. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 59(1), 1-39.
Norris P., Inglehart R. (2004). Religion, the Protestant ethic, and moral values. In Norris P., Inglehart R. (Eds.), Sacred and secular: Religion and politics worldwide (pp. 159-179). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Sameulsson K. (1993). Religion and economic action: The protestant ethic, the rise of capitalism, and the abuses of scholarship. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Tawney R. H. (1926). Religion and the rise of capitalism. New York: Harper and Row.
Turner J. C., Hogg M. A., Oakes P. J., Reicher S. D., Wetherell M. S. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. New York: Blackwell.
U. S. Department of State Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. (2009). Background note: Switzerland. Retrieved from www.state.gov
Weber M. (1978). Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology (E. Fischof, Trans.). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Weber M. (1996). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism (T. Parsons, Trans.). Los Angeles: Roxbury.
World Bank. (2009). World Development Indicators 2009 [data file]. Retrieved from www.worldbank.org
Cite article
Cite article
Cite article
OR
Download to reference manager
If you have citation software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice
Information, rights and permissions
Information
Published In
Article first published online: July 10, 2011
Issue published: November 2011
Keywords
Authors
Metrics and citations
Metrics
Journals metrics
This article was published in Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.
VIEW ALL JOURNAL METRICSArticle usage*
Total views and downloads: 1192
*Article usage tracking started in December 2016
Articles citing this one
Receive email alerts when this article is cited
Web of Science: 41 view articles Opens in new tab
Crossref: 43
-
The association between system-justifying ideologies and attitudes tow...
-
Is Work an Act of Worship? The Impact of Implicit Religious Beliefs on...
-
Religion as a factor in cultural consumption: Religious denomination a...
-
The influence of religious belief and psychological factors on borrowi...
-
Streamable Services: Affinities for Streaming in Pre-Pandemic Congrega...
-
Catholics, Protestants and Muslims: Similar work ethics, different soc...
-
Activating Self-Interest: The Role of Party Polarization in Preference...
-
Culture, Religion, and Corruption/Prosperity (A), (B), (C), (1), (2)
-
a) Switzerland: Extreme Positive Case Study (Worldwide)
-
Selected anomalies or overlooked variability? Modernization is associa...
-
Cultural similarity among coreligionists within and between countries
-
Innovation und Religion
-
Nonfinancial employment commitment among Muslims and Jews in Israel: e...
-
Religion, Crime, and Social Trust in Historic Germany: Are Catholics M...
-
Religiosity and Regional Resilience to Recession
-
Career motives according to degree of religiosity among Jewish student...
-
Multi-level modelling of time-series cross-sectional data reveals the ...
-
Individualism and Venture Capital: A Cross-Country Study
-
The Moral Limits of the Market: Science Commercialization and Religiou...
-
Capitalist Views and Religion
-
“Ye Shall Know Them by Their Fruits”: Prosperity and Institutional Rel...
-
Innovation und Religion
-
Individualism and Venture Capital: A Cross-Country Study
-
THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL EFFECTS OF RELIGION ON SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT:...
-
The Contingent, Contextual Nature of the Relationship Between Needs fo...
-
Ethno-religious groups work values and ethics: the case of Jews, Musli...
-
Work Ethic among Jews and Muslims...
-
Working Hours and Life Satisfaction: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of La...
-
Charting African Prosperity Gospel economies
-
A comparative study of work ethic among Muslims and Protestants: Multi...
-
Aging, Social Developmental, and Cultural Factors in Changing Patterns...
-
Culture and Corporate Governance: The Influence of Language and Religi...
-
Protestant Work Ethic Among the Muslims: Changeable Empirical Evidence
-
Strength and Positivity of Religious Identification as Predictors of t...
-
Child sexual abuse in religiously affiliated and secular institutions:...
-
Ambivalent Sexism and Religion: Connected Through Values
-
Cross-National Analysis of the Influence of Cultural Norms and Governm...
-
Implications of the Protestant work ethic for cooperative and mixed-mo...
-
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY & ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: EXPLORING THE CAUSAL CONNECT...
-
Is Culture a Determinant of Corporate Governance?
-
The work and its meaning among Jews and Muslims according to religiosi...
-
Cultural Perspectives on Values and Religion in Adolescent Development
-
Psychology of Culture and Religion...
Figures and tables
Figures & Media
Tables
View Options
Get access
Access options
If you have access to journal content via a personal subscription, university, library, employer or society, select from the options below:
loading institutional access options
IACCP members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.
IACCP members can access this journal content using society membership credentials.
Alternatively, view purchase options below:
Purchase 24 hour online access to view and download content.
Access journal content via a DeepDyve subscription or find out more about this option.
