Survey self-reports are unreliable proxies for actual religious trust behavior

Evidence

As insightful as survey findings are, they have to be taken with a grain of salt. For one thing, we can never be sure whether survey respondents mean what they say. (People often behave in a manner inconsistent with their stated attitudes, or often manufacture attitudes to justify their behaviors.) Moreover, survey results are often affected by the wording of the questions. However we do not need to rely on opinion surveys to see evidence of worldwide intolerance of atheists. A recent global report by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) found that laws and public practices that discriminate against atheists and religious skeptics are widespread in many countries with religious majorities. Yet these kinds of analyses, as important as they are, cannot tell us if religious conviction is the key elicitor of distrust or hostility toward atheism, rather than something else that is tied up with a country’s level of religiosity (such as low levels of human development, or traditionalism). Experiments are needed where peoples’ actual social behavior or attitudes could be observed in controlled conditions. While such experiments are in very short supply, the available evidence lends support to the survey findings and cross-national analyses of laws, and points to a link between religious conviction and trust. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 214

Categorization

• XREF: Methodological caution that strengthens the reader’s case for behavioral experiments: observing actual trampling/apostasy reveals more than stated attitudes would.