Measuring religious costs and rewards in a cross-cultural perspective

Abstract

The assumption of rationally motivated individual religious behavior was tested in a survey of undergraduate university students from four different cultural/religious environments: Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, and the United States of America. In particular, an attempt was made to explain readiness to bear religious costs by the expectation of otherworldly rewards and some other variables, such as religious socialization, support in the upbringing of children, religious capital, satisfaction with religious services and the perceived social sanctions for possible religious nonparticipation. It was found that it is the otherworldly rewards in all the samples that explain by far the major part of the variance in the readiness to bear religious costs. These results suggest that individuals do tend to make rational choices even when it comes to religion. Based on their beliefs, they are ready to accept religious costs approximately to the level of their expectation of otherworldly rewards.