The authors characterize religions as social groups and religiosity as the extent to which a person identifies with a religion, subscribes to its ideology or worldview, and conforms to its normative practices. They argue that religions have attributes that make them well suited to reduce feelings of self-uncertainty. According to uncertainty-identity theory, people are motivated to reduce feelings of uncertainty about or reflecting on self; and identification with groups, particularly highly entitative groups, is a very effective way to reduce uncertainty. All groups provide belief systems and normative prescriptions related to everyday life. However, religions also address the nature of existence, invoking sacred entities and associated rituals and ceremonies. They are entitative groups that provide a moral compass and rules for living that pervade a person's life, making them particularly attractive in times of uncertainty. The authors document data supporting their analysis and discuss conditions that transform religiosity into religious zealotry and extremism.
The author argues that evaluators must forge a strong bridge between basic social science and evaluation. Realizing this potential will involve holding evaluation to a high standard, through advancing cutting-edge empirical methods, balancing demands for accountability, and providing direction for basic social science. Approaches such as theory-based evaluation and natural-variation research designs can demonstrate the importance of evaluation, and help evaluators to ensure that traffic of ideas between basic social science and evaluation runs efficiently in both directions.
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