Socioeconomic Deprivation and Religious Salience: A Cognitive Behavioral Approach.

Past research is consistent with the idea that socioeconomic deprivation leads individuals to be more religious in certain ways. The related perspectives of exchange theory and cognitive behaviorism imply that such deprivation also leads people to place more importance on religion—a virtually unexplored issue. This study examines the effects of education, occupational prestige, and income on "religious salience" among residents of the Raleigh, North Carolina, metropolitan area. Occupational prestige and—among respondents who were not church members— education are found to have the hypothesized negative effects on salience. However, income has no effects when education and occupation are controlled, and an argument by Rodney Stark that these effects would hold true only for church members is contradicted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]