Identity Importance and the Overreporting of Religious Service Attendance: Multiple Imputation of Religious Attendance Using the American Time Use Study and the General Social Survey

Abstract

The difference between religious service attendance measured using conventional surveys and time diaries has been attributed to identity processes; a high level of religious identity importance may prompt overreporting on a survey question. This article tests the hypothesized role of identity importance as an individual determinant of overreporting and the result of socially desirable behavior. A time diary measure of attendance (from the American Time Use Study 2003-2008) is imputed for conventional survey data (from the General Social Survey 2002-2008) using the multiple imputation for multiple studies procedure (Gelman, King, and Liu 1998a). Logistic regression models predicting self-reported attendance and overreported attendance are estimated using identity importance as a key covariate and controlling for demographic variables associated with attendance. Identity importance is a strong predictor of both self-reported and overreported attendance. Attendance, while a biased measure of actual behavior, may be a good indicator of religiosity.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Survey Self-Reports? Identity as a Cause of Measurement Bias

“…The respondent reports lower rates of these behaviors to an interviewer than warranted in order to appear socially desirable (Tourangeau and Yan 2007). Conversely, overreporting of normative behavior is primarily motivated by the ideal self, although not necessarily deliberately (Brenner 2011a, 2012; Hadaway et al 1998). Rather than being motivated solely by self-presentational concerns, the respondent pragmatically reinterprets the question (Clark and Schober 1992; Schwarz 1996; Sudman, Bradburn, and Schwarz 1996) to be one about identity rather than behavior (Hadaway et al 1998), a process influenced by a desire for consistency between the ideal self and the actual self.…”

Cortisol and politics: Variance in voting behavior is predicted by baseline cortisol levels

“…In fact, the CORT-voting relationship we demonstrate in this study is one of the few reported in the realm of individual-level politics in which neither predictor (baseline CORT) nor criterion variable (actual voting behavior) is based on a self-report. Over-reporting of personal involvement in a number of social and political activities is a common finding [46–48], and our results suggest that variation in self-reported activities may not reflect underlying physiological differences, whereas variation in actual behavioral measures are associated with important differences in HPA function.…”

The Negative Relationship between Size and the Probability of Weekly Attendance in Churches in the United States

“…This could simply be because these groups are extremely heterogeneous across congregations and religious traditions, making any relationship difficult to detect with the available data. It is also possible that White Conservative Protestants overreport their attendance more than other groups (Brenner 2011). This could also explain why the negative relationship is not statistically significant.…”