Abstract
In recent years a number of studies have explored possible sources of nonrandom error and response bias in survey data on religion. Building on a longstanding body of work in the social sciences, we examine a neglected issue in this domain: the potential for race-of-interviewer effects, specifically in African Americans’ self-reports of various dimensions of religiousness. After outlining two competing perspectives on this issue—which we term racial deference and racial solidarity—we test relevant hypotheses using data from the African American oversample of a nationwide study of older adults. Results indicate that older blacks tend to report higher levels of non-organizational religious practices and subjective religiousness when interviewed by whites. A number of implications and promising directions for future research are discussed.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
To explore this issue further, we conducted a brief analysis of GSS data from 2002, the year closest to that of the RAH survey. We compared the racial attitudes of whites ages 65 and over with those of their younger counterparts. The percentage of these persons indicating they would oppose or strongly oppose a close family member marrying a black person was: 58.5% among those 65 and over, as compared with 48.1% (55–64), 31.9% (45–54), 23.5% (35–44), and 18.1% (34 or younger). Other items were examined, including whites willingness to live in close proximity to African Americans, and whites stereotyping of African Americans (i.e., lazy, unintelligent). The results showed there were substantial age/cohort differences with those 65+ holding the most prejudiced views. Such patterns suggest that older African Americans have ample reason to be wary in their dealings with white strangers, given the persistent prejudice on the part of their white counterparts.
This line of argument is reminiscent of earlier arguments by Carr (1971), who argued that rates of acquiescence by lower-SES blacks to some survey items, such as those developed by Srole to tap “anomie,” are disproportionately high among lower-SES African Americans as compared with other social groups. Citing Ralph Ellison’s (1947) Invisible Man, Carr (1971) concluded that such acquiescence (or yes-saying) “has proved to be, historically, an effective rational tactic for survival” (p. 291) and that “acquiescence can be seen more as a tactic used in social interaction rather than a deep-rooted personality syndrome” (p. 292).
Although most of the work on the “semi-involuntary institution” has centered on the Black Church as an institutional presence in African American communities, Sherkat and Cunningham (1998) noted that non-organizational religious practices often take place in social settings, e.g., prayer and religious media consumption with family and friends. For that reason, they argue that non-conformity with broader norms about these behaviors can carry negative social sanctions, just as it can when individuals opt out of participation in congregational life. Thus, Sherkat and Cunningham (1998) contend that the semi-involuntary thesis is also germane to private religious consumption. This might suggest that African Americans interviewed by persons of their same race could feel pressured to overreport their non-organizational religious practices (and perhaps even their subjective religious perceptions) as well.
The RAH sample was originally designed to consist of equal numbers of African American and white elders. We dropped a small number of respondents who were queried by interviewers from a racial/ethnic background besides black or white (e.g., Latino, Asian). Missing cases on individual items were handled via listwise deletion, which allows the effective N in our analyses to vary somewhat across specific dependent variables.
Briefly, RAH items on organizational involvement and congregational activities were subjected to an exploratory principal components factor analysis using the FACTOR procedure in SAS version 9.1. Two clear factors emerged with eigenvalues greater than 1.5. Three items (attending services, attending Sunday School or Bible study groups, participating in prayer groups) loaded on the first factor at greater than 0.60, with loadings on the second factor at 0.20 or less. These three items were retained as the components of the organizational religious practices scale. Three different items (work around the church, working on church programs, leadership roles) loaded on the second factor at greater than 0.45, with similarly minimal loadings on the second factor. These latter three items were used to construct the congregational activism scale.
The seven items developed by Krause (2004) to measure attitudes regarding religion and race relations were subjected to an exploratory principal components factor analysis using the FACTOR procedure in SAS version 9.1. One again, two clear factors emerged with eigenvalues greater than 1.5. Five items (enumerated in the measures section of the article) loaded on the first factor at 0.50 or greater, with loadings on the second factor of 0.15 or less. This set of items was used to construct the scale of critical views. The remaining two items loaded on a second factor at greater than 0.70, loading on the first factor at less than 0.25. Therefore, the remaining two items were used to create our measure of deferential views on religion and race.
Several studies have maintained that the “semi-involuntary institution” thesis is particularly relevant to African American life in the South (Ellison and Sherkat 1995; Sherkat and Cunningham 1998; Hunt and Larry 2000). If that is the case, then one might expect for the patterns anticipated by H3 and H4 to be stronger among southern African Americans, as compared with those residing elsewhere. Although the best and most straightforward test of this idea would involve adding cross-product interaction terms (region × race of interviewer) to the OLS models in Table 2, unfortunately that is not feasible, due to a dearth of African American interviewers in some regions. Nevertheless, simple regional comparisons of the bivariate associations between race of interviewer and (a) organizational religiousness and (b) critical responses to items on religion and race relations suggest no support for this version of the “racial solidarity” perspective.
Although some studies over the years have focused on race-of-interviewer effects among both African Americans and whites, and it would be interesting to do so with regard to religion, that is not feasible with the RAH data. All but 12 of the 750 white respondents were interviewed by whites.
References
Aiken, Leona S., and Stephen G. West. 1991. Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Anderson, Barbara A., and Brian D. Silver. 1986. Measurement and mismeasurement of the validity of the self-reported vote. American Journal of Political Science 30: 771–785.
Anderson, Barbara A., Brian D. Silver, and Paul R. Abramson. 1988a. The effects of race of the interviewer on measures of electoral participation by Blacks in SRC National Election Studies. Public Opinion Quarterly 52: 53–83.
Anderson, Barbara A., Brian D. Silver, and Paul R. Abramson. 1988b. The effects of the race of the interviewer on race-related attitudes of Black respondents in SRC/CPS National Election Studies. Public Opinion Quarterly 52: 289–324.
Bierman, Alex. 2006. Does religion buffer the effects of discrimination on mental health? Differing effects by race. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 45: 551–565.
Billingsley, Andrew. 1999. Mighty like a river: The Black church and social reform. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brennan, Kathleen M., and Andrew S. London. 2001. Are religious people nice people? Religiosity, race, interview dynamics, and perceived cooperativeness. Sociological Inquiry 71: 129–144.
Carr, Leslie G. 1971. The Srole items and acquiescence. American Sociological Review 36: 287–293.
Cotter, Patrick R., Jeffrey Cohen, and Philip B. Coulter. 1982. Race-of-interviewer effects in telephone interviews. Public Opinion Quarterly 46: 278–284.
Crowne, P.D., and D. Marlowe. 1960. A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. Journal of Consulting Psychology 24: 349–354.
Davis, Darren W. 1997a. Nonrandom measurement error and race of interviewer effects among African Americans. Public Opinion Quarterly 61: 183–207.
Davis, Darren W. 1997b. The direction of race of interviewer effects among African Americans donning the black mask. American Journal of Political Science 41: 309–322.
Davis, James A., Tom W. Smith, and Peter V. Marsden. 2008. The General Social Survey: Cumulative codebook, 1972–2008. Chicago: National Opinion Research Center. Machine-readable data file [MRDF] distributed by Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), Ann Arbor, MI.
Ehrlich, June S., and David Riesman. 1961. Age and authority in the interview. Public Opinion Quarterly 25: 39–56.
Ellison, Ralph. 1947. Invisible man. New York: The New American Library.
Ellison, Christopher G. 1991. Identification and separatism: Religious involvement and racial orientations among Black Americans. The Sociological Quarterly 32: 477–494.
Ellison, Christopher G. 1992. Are religious people nice people? Evidence from the National Survey of Black Americans. Social Forces 71: 411–430.
Ellison, Christopher G., Marc A. Musick, and Andrea K. Henderson. 2008. Balm in Gilead: Racism, religious involvement, and psychological distress in a nationwide sample of African American adults. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 47: 291–309.
Ellison, Christopher G., and Darren E. Sherkat. 1995. The ‘semi-involuntary institution’ revisited: Regional variations in church participation among Black Americans. Social Forces 73: 1415–1437.
Firebaugh, Glenn, and Kenneth E. Davis. 1988. Trends in anti-black prejudice, 1972–1984: Region and cohort effects. American Journal of Sociology 94: 251–272.
Hadaway, C.Kirk, Penny Long Marler, and Mark Chaves. 1993. What the polls don’t show: The overreporting of church attendance. American Sociological Review 58: 641–662.
Harris, Fredrick C. 1999. Something within: Religion in African American political activism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hatchett, Shirley, and Howard Schuman. 1975. White respondents and race-of-interviewer effects. Public Opinion Quarterly 39: 523–528.
Hout, Michael, and Andrew Greeley. 1998. What church officials’ reports don’t show: Another look at church attendance data. American Sociological Review 63: 113–119.
Hunt, Matthew O., and Larry L. Hunt. 2000. Regional religions? Extending the semi involuntary thesis of African American religious participation. Sociological Forum 15: 569–594.
Hyman, Herbert H., William J. Cobb, Jacob J. Feldman, and Clyde W. Hart. 1954. Interviewing in social research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Iannaccone, Laurence R., and Sean F. Everton. 2004. Never on sunny days: Lessons from weekly attendance counts. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43: 191–207.
Idler, Ellen L., Marc A. Musick, Christopher G. Ellison, Linda K. George, Neal Krause, Jeffrey S. Levin, Marcia Ory, Kenneth I. Pargament, Lynda S. Powell, David R. Williams, and Lynn G. Underwood. 2003. Measuring multiple dimensions of religion and spirituality for health-related research: Conceptual background and findings from the 1998 General Social Survey. Research on Aging 25: 327–365.
Johnson, Charles S. 1941. Growing up in the black belt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kane, Emily W., and Laura J. Macaulay. 1993. Interviewer gender and gender attitudes. Public Opinion Quarterly 57: 1–28.
Kluegel, James R. 1990. Trends in Whites’ explanations of the Black-White gap in socioeconomic status, 1977–1989. American Sociological Review 55: 512–525.
Krause, Neal. 2002. A comprehensive strategy for developing closed-ended survey items for use in studies of older adults. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences 57B: S263–S274.
Krause, Neal. 2004. Common facets of religion, unique facets of religion, and life satisfaction among older African Americans. Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences 59B: S109–S117.
Krause, Neal. 2008. Aging in the church: How social relationships affect health. West Conshohocken, PA: John Templeton Foundation Press.
Krysan, Maria, and Mick P. Couper. 2003. Race in the live and virtual interview: Racial deference, social desirability, and activation effects in attitude surveys. Social Psychology Quarterly 66: 364–383.
Landis, Judson, Daryl Sullivan, and Joseph Sheley. 1973. Feminist attitudes related to sex of interviewer. Pacific Sociological Review 16: 305–314.
Levin, Jeffrey S., Robert J. Taylor, and Linda M. Chatters. 1995. A multidimensional model of religiosity among Black Americans. The Sociological Quarterly 36: 157–173.
Lewis, Hylan. 1955. Blackways of Kent. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Lincoln, C. Eric, and Lawrence H. Mamiya. 1990. The Black church in the African American experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Lueptow, Lloyd B., Susan L. Moser, and Brian F. Pendleton. 1990. Gender and response effects in telephone interviews about gender characteristics. Sex Roles 22: 29–42.
McDaniel, Eric L. 2008. Politics in the Pews: The political mobilization of Black churches. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Morgan, S. Philip. 1983. A research note on religion and morality: Are religious people nice people? Social Forces 61: 683–692.
Morris, Aldon. 1996. The Black church in the civil rights movement: The SCLC as the decentralized radical arm of the Black church. In Disruptive religion: The force of faith in social movement activism, ed. Christian Smith, 29–46. New York: Routledge.
Nelsen, Hart M., Raytha L. Yokley, and Anne K. Nelsen (eds.). 1971. Black church in the sixties. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.
Paulhus, Delroy L. 1991. Measurement and control of response bias. In Measures of personality and social psychological attitudes, vol. 1, ed. John P. Robinson, Phillip R. Shaver, and Lawrence S. Wrightsman, 17–59. San Diego: Academic Press.
Presser, Stanley, and Linda Stinson. 1998. Data collection mode and social desirability bias in self-reported religious attendance. American Sociological Review 63: 137–145.
Regnerus, Mark D., and Christian Smith. 2005. Selection effects in studies of religious influence. Review of Religious Research 47: 23–50.
Regnerus, Mark D., and Jeremy Uecker. 2007. Religious influences on sensitive behaviors: The product of social desirability, deceit, or embarrassment? Sociology of Religion 68: 145–163.
Ross, Jack C., and Raymond Wheeler. 1971. Black belonging. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Schaeffer, Nora C. 1980. Evaluating race-of-interviewer effects in a national survey. Sociological Methods and Research 8: 400–419.
Schuman, Howard, and Jean Converse. 1971. The effects of Black and White interviewers on Black responses in 1968. Public Opinion Quarterly 35: 44–68.
Sherkat, Darren E. 2007. Religion and survey non-response: Toward explaining the moral voter gap between surveys and voting. Sociology of Religion 68: 83–95.
Sherkat, Darren E., and Shannon A. Cunningham. 1998. Extending the semi-involuntary institution: Regional variations and social constraints on private religious consumption among African Americans. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37: 383–396.
Silver, Brian D., Paul R. Abramson, and Barbara A. Anderson. 1986. The presence of others and over-reporting of voting in American national elections. Public Opinion Quarterly 50: 228–239.
Singer, Eleanor, Martin R. Frankel, and Marc B. Glassman. 1983. The effect of interviewer characteristics and expectations on response. Public Opinion Quarterly 47: 68–83.
Smith, A. Wade. 1989. Education as a determinant of social class among Black Americans. Journal of Negro Education 58: 416–429.
Sniderman, Paul M., and Thomas Piazza. 1993. The scar of race. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Stark, Rodney, and Charles Y. Glock. 1968. American piety. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sudman, Seymour, Norman Bradburn, and Norbert Schwarz. 1996. Thinking about answers: The application of cognitive processes to survey methodology. San Francisco: Jossey-Brass.
Taylor, Robert J., Linda M. Chatters, and Jeffrey S. Levin. 2004. Religion in the lives of African Americans. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Tucker, Clyde. 1983. Interviewer effects in telephone surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly 47: 84–95.
Uecker, Jeremy. 2008. Religious and spiritual responses to 9/11: Evidence from the Add Health Study. Sociological Spectrum 28: 477–509.
Woodberry, Robert D. 1998. When surveys lie and people tell the truth: How surveys oversample church attenders. American Sociological Review 63: 119–122.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ellison, C.G., McFarland, M.J. & Krause, N. Measuring Religiousness Among Older African Americans: Exploring Race-of-Interviewer Effects. Rev Relig Res 53, 65–84 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-011-0002-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-011-0002-9