how religious geography, individual affiliation and day of the week relate to sentiment and topics

97 Pages·2017·1.47 MB·English

by  Stephanie Kramer

HOLY DAY EFFECTS ON LANGUAGE: HOW RELIGIOUS GEOGRAPHY,
INDIVIDUAL AFFILIATION AND DAY OF THE WEEK RELATE TO
SENTIMENT AND TOPICS ON TWITTER

by
STEPHANIE R. KRAMER

A DISSERTATION
Presented to the Department of Psychology
and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

September 2017
DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE
Student: Stephanie R. Kramer
Title: Holy Day Effects on Language: How Religious Geography, Individual
Affiliation and Day of the Week Relate to Sentiment and Topics on Twitter
This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of
Psychology by:
Azim Shariff Chairperson
Sanjay Srivastava Core Member
Eliott Berkman Core Member
Ryan Light Institutional Representative

and
Sara D. Hodges Interim Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School
Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate
School.
Degree awarded September 2017

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© 2017 Stephanie R. Kramer

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DISSERTATION ABSTRACT
Stephanie R. Kramer
Doctor of Philosophy
Department of Psychology
September 2017
Title: Holy Day Effects on Language: How Religious Geography, Individual
Affiliation and Day of the Week Relate to Sentiment and Topics on Twitter
Religious belief and attendance predict improved well-being at the
individual level. Paradoxically, geographic locations with high rates of religious
belief and attendance are often those with the differentially high rates of societal
instability and suffering. Many of the consequences of religiosity are context-
based and vary across time, and holy days are naturally-occurring religious cues
that have been shown to influence religiously-relevant attitudes and behaviors. I
investigated the degree to which personal religiosity and religious geography (i.e.
religious demographics with other location variables) individually and
interactively predict well-being across days of the week.
In the first study, American Christians demonstrated greater well-being by
expressing more positive sentiment in Twitter posts, while American Muslims
displayed less well-being. Sundays were generally the most positive day, but
American Muslims communicated more happiness on Fridays (the Muslim holy
day). In the second study, Christianity did not predict increased well-being in the
posts of college students. In the third study, global survey data with measures of
religiosity and well-being indicated that the well-being consequences of religious
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affiliation depend on the religious group and location, and that people tend to be
especially positive on their group’s holy day. Study four explored the latent
topical content of Twitter posts. Across studies, religious minority status
appeared to have a deleterious effect on well-being.

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CURRICULUM VITAE
NAME OF AUTHOR: Stephanie R. Kramer

GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
University of Oregon, Eugene
Columbia College, Columbia

DEGREES AWARDED:
Master of Science, Social/Personality Psychology, 2014, University of
Oregon
Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, 2013, Columbia College

AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:
Psychology of Religion
Computational Social Science

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:
Research Associate, Global Religious Demography, Pew Research Center,
2016 – present
Graduate Employee, Department of Psychology, University of Oregon,
2013 – 2016

GRANTS, AWARDS AND HONORS:
Promising Scholar’s Award, University of Oregon, 2013
Graduate Education Committee Research Travel Award, Department of
Psychology, University of Oregon, 2013 – 2016

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PUBLICATIONS:
Shariff, A.F., Willard, A.K., Murthukrishna, M., Kramer, S.R. & Henrich, J.
(2016). What is the association between religious affiliation and
children’s altruism? Current Biology, 26, 699 – 700.

Kramer, S. R., & Shariff, A. F. (2016). Religion, deception, and self-
deception. In J. van Prooijen & P. van Lange (Eds.) Cheating,
Corruption, and Concealment: The Roots of Dishonesty (pp 233 –
249). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

*Shariff, A. F., *Piazza, J. & *Kramer, S. R. (2014). Morality and the
religious mind: Why theists and non-theists differ. Trends in
Cognitive Sciences, 18, 439 – 441. *= all authors contributed
equally.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to express thanks to my advisor, Azim Shariff, for his mentorship,
and also to my committee members, Sanjay Srivastava, Elliot Berkman and Ryan
Light for their guidance. Thanks to Joe Hoover and Sarah Greenlaw for their help
with data collection, and to Junaid Merchant for editing and cheerleading.
Finally, I want to express my appreciation to Conrad Hackett and the rest of my
colleagues at Pew Research Center, for their encouragement and support.

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To Finn and Ramona, for being so watchful.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. 1
Well-being in Religious Places ............................................................................. 2
Well-being of Religious Minority Members ........................................................ 3
Well-being at Religious Times ............................................................................. 4
Well-being Throughout the Week ........................................................................ 7
Religious Personalities and Well-Being ............................................................... 7
Computational Methods for Assessing Well-Being ............................................. 9
Pilot Studies ........................................................................................................ 11
LIWC ................................................................................................................ 12
Pilot Study 1 ..................................................................................................... 13
Pilot Study 2 .................................................................................................... 13
Current Investigation .......................................................................................... 14
II. STUDY 1 METHODS .......................................................................................... 17
Classifying Tweets by U.S. state.......................................................................... 18
Classifying Users by Religious Affiliation ........................................................... 18
Detecting Self-identification with a Religious Group ........................................ 18
Identifying Users by Accounts Followed ............................................................ 19
III. STUDY 1 RESULTS ......................................................................................... 22
State-level Church Attendance and Tone .......................................................... 22
Religious Affiliation and Tone ........................................................................... 23
Tone in Tweets from Egypt ................................................................................ 25
Religious Majority-Minority Status Across Contexts ........................................ 26
Discussion ........................................................................................................... 27
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