Anomie, Powerlessness, and Religious Participation

Author(s): Dwight G. Dean

Source: Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 7, No. 2 (Autumn, 1968), pp.
252-254
Published by: Wiley on behalf of Society for the Scientific Study of Religion
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1384633
Accessed: 27-06-2016 08:38 UTC

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 ANOMIE, POWERLESSNESS,
AND RELIGIOUS PARTICIPATION
DWIGHT G. DEAN
Department of Sociology
Iowa State University
THEORIES of need-fulfilling functions of
religion should expect a relationship
between anomie and religious partic-
ipation. But Keedy found that anomie
was inversely correlated with religious
participation,' and Bell found that when
socio-economic status was controlled,
there was no significant difference in
anomie score between religious and non-
religious individuals.2 Both used the Srole
scale to measure anomie.
This study reports results, using two
other measures of anomie, confirming
Bell's findings of no relationship. It also
reports a curvilinear relationship between
a measure of powerlessness and religious
participation.
PROCEDURE
Sample
145 useable questionnaires were obtain-
ed from the 196 students enrolled in the
introductory sociology course at Denison
University in the fall term of 1964-65.
All students at this liberal arts school are
required to take two of the three social
science courses, economics, political science
and/or sociology; election of the alter-
natives is approximately equal and stable.
The data reported here were collected as
I T. C. Keedy, "Anomie and Religious Or-
thodo xy," Sociology and Social Research, 43,
1 (Sep tember-October, 1958), pp. 34-37.
2 W endell Bell, "Anomie, Social Isolatioin,
and t he Class Structure," Sociornetry, 20. (June,
1957), pp. 105-106.
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one of a series of 18 laboratory assign-
ments during the term.
It was assumed that socio-economic
status was controlled in this sample,
since data suggest that students at this
school are recruited from a narrow socio-
economic stratum of the population.3
Measures of Alienation
Anomie. The Dean Alienation scale
includes three sub-scales.4 Two of these
scales-normlessness and social isolation
-are derived from Durkheim's concept
of anomie.6 Typical normlessness items
are: "The end often justifies the means"
and "I often wonder what the meaning
of life really is." Typical social isolation
items: "Sometimes I feel all alone in the
world" and "One can always find friends
if he shows himself friendly."
3 The fathers of Denison women had a mean
North-Hatt Occupational Prestige Score of
79.3, with a standard deviation of 4.1-i.e.,
two thirds of the fathers has scores between
about 75 and 83 out of the theoretically possible
0 to 100. Dwight G. Dean and Jon A. Reeves,
"Anomie: A Comparison of a Catholic and a
Protestant Sample," Sociometry, 25, 2 (June,
1962), pp. 209-212.
4 Dwight G. Dean, "Alienation: Its Meaning
and Measurement," American Sociological Re-
view, 26, 5 (October, 1961), pp. 753-758.
5 Translation by Sebastian DeGrazia, The
Political Community: A Study of Anomie
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948),
p. 3.
 ANOMIE, POWERLESSNESS AND PARTICIPATION 253

TABLE 1.

INFLUENCE OF RELIGION AND ALIENATION

Powerlessness Normlessness Isolation

Marked influence (N 34) 14.67* 9.29 17.8;

Moderate influence (N 78) 16.23* 10.46 18.37
Little or no influence (N 33) 14.60* 10.36 17.45

* The critical ratio between the first two categories is 2.07; between the second two, 1.71;
between the two extremes (taken together) and the middle category, 2.34.

Powerlessness. This scale is derived church regularly, sometimes, or seldom

from Hegel6 and from Marx7, especially
the latter's discussion of the separation
of the worker from the tools of produc-
tion. Weber extended Marx' concept of
"separation" to the modern professional
worker.8 Typical of the nine items which
comprise this scale are the following:
There is little or nothing I can do to-
wards preventing a major "shooting" war.
We are just so many cogs in the ma-
chinery of life.
The validity of these three scales was
defined by the independent judges cri-
terion9 using sociologists at Ohio State
University who rated 139 items separately
for the three scales. Split-half reliability
was .73 for normlessness, .84 for social
isolation, and .78 for powerlessness.
Measures of religiosity
Each respondent was asked (1) to rate
if ever.
RESULTS
Because there were no significant dif-
ferences between men and women, the
sexes were analyzed together.
Anomie
The two measures derived from Durk-
heim's concept of anomie showed a slight,
but not significant curvilinear relation-
ship with each of the measures of religiosi-
ty, those reporting moderate religiosity
scoring highest in normlessness and social
isolation. The data for self-rating of
religious influence are reported in Table
1. Measures of attendance and giving
showed similar effects.
Powerlessness
This measure showed a significant cur-

whether religion has had a great, moder- vilinear relationship with each of the

ate, or little or no influence on his life; measures of religiosity. On report of re-

(2) how frequently he attends church;
and (3) whether he gives money to the
6 Cited in Herbert Marcuse, Reason and
Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press,
1941), p. 34.
7 Cited in Herbert Marcuse, op. cit., p. 273.
8 See Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From
Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1946), p. 50.
9 This method adapted from John K. Hemp-
hill and Charles M. Westie, "The Measurement
of Group Dimensions," in The Language of
Social Research, edited by Paul Lazarsfeld,
et. al., (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1955), pp. 325 ff.
ligious influence (Table 1) extremes vs.
the moderate category yielded a critical
ratio of 2.34. On attendance, the extremes
("twice or more per month," and "never")
showed lower powerlessness scores than
those reporting attendance once a month
or two or three times per year (CR =
3.14). On giving, extremes ("regularly"
and "seldom") scored lower on power-
lessness than those giving sometimes (CR
= 2.13). 10
10 The results are abbreviated for this report,
but the author will be glad to furnish complete
data upon written request from any reader.

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254 JOURNAL FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION
DISCUSSION
It is noteworthy that these findings
parallel the report of Allen and Spilka11
in that only the Powerlessness dimension
differentiated significantly between the
"Committed" and the "Consensual" re-
ligionists.
Perhaps Allport's distinction of the
intrinsic and extrinsic orientation to re-
ligion would yield more significant find-
ings12 although findings from a pilot
11 Russeil 0. Allen and Bernard Spilka,
"Committed and Consensual Religion: A Specifi-
cation of the Religion-Prejudice Relationships,"
Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion,
6, 2 (Fall, 1967), pp. 181-206.
32 Gordon W. Allport, "The Religious Context
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study of ours indicated very little rela-
tionship between Alienation and the
Adorno prejudice scale.
It is suggested that further research be
undertaken to determine whether the
"marginal man" (in the church but not
of it, the "neither cold nor hot" of the
writer of Revelation13) may be seeking
relief from a sense of helplessness. This
does, of course, leave unexplained the
lack of differentiation on the Normless-
ness and the Social Isolation scales, but
would be consonant with an interpreta-
tion of the need-fulfillment function of
religion for many individuals.
of Prejudice," Journal for the Scientific Study
of Religion, 5, 3 (Fall, 1966), pp. 447-457.
13 Revelation 3:15.