Person: Putnam, Robert
Loading...
Email Address
AA Acceptance Date
Birth Date
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Job Title
Last Name
Putnam
First Name
Robert
Name
Putnam, Robert
6 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
Publication Religion, networks, and neighborliness: The impact of religious social networks on civic engagement(Elsevier, 2013) Putnam, Robert; Lewis, Valerie A.; MacGregor, Carol AnnA substantial literature has found that religiosity is positively related to individuals’ civic engagement and informal helping behavior. Concurrently, social networks as sources of information and encouragement have been suggested as the mechanism underlying phenomena including successful job searches, improved health and greater subjective well-being. In this paper we use data from the Portraits of American Life Study (PALS) to examine whether religiously based social networks explain the well-established relationship between religion and civic engagement. We test potential mechanisms including beliefs, affiliation, and social networks, and we find that having a strong network of religious friends explains the effect of church attendance for several civic and neighborly outcomes. We suggest this phenomenon may exist in other, non-religious, spheres that also produce strong friendship networks.Publication God and Caesar in America(Council on Foreign Relations, 2012) Putnam, Robert; Campbell, David E.Essay Preview: Deepening the mystery of the GOP's turn to God is the emergence of the Tea Party, which ostensibly formed to shrink government with a relentless focus on fiscal issues. What gives? A careful look at the trends in our politics over the last generation, including the rise of the Tea Party, solves the religion riddle. Not only have the Democratic and Republican parties been increasingly separated by a "God gap," but our data clearly show that Tea Party supporters sprang from the ranks of the Religious Right -- conservatives who advocate a fusion, rather than a separation, of church and state. Tea Partiers are thus the natural constituency for a culture warrior like Rick Santorum. They are fiscal conservatives, but religious issues really resonate. Time will tell whether all this God talk will be good for the Republicans in November -- we suspect not. Tea Party supporters constitute the most energized part of the Republican base and roughly two thirds of the primary electorate. However, they constitute barely a quarter of the November electorate and are reviled by much of the rest. While the Republican base has become ever more committed to mixing religion and politics, the rest of the country has been moving in the opposite direction.Publication Religion, Social Networks, and Life Satisfaction(American Sociological Association/Sage, 2010) Lim, Chaeyoon; Putnam, RobertAlthough the positive association between religiosity and life satisfaction is well documented, much theoretical and empirical controversy surrounds the question of how religion actually shapes life satisfaction. Using a new panel dataset, this study offers strong evidence for social and participatory mechanisms shaping religion’s impact on life satisfaction. Our findings suggest that religious people are more satisfied with their lives because they regularly attend religious services and build social networks in their congregations. The effect of within-congregation friendship is contingent, however, on the presence of a strong religious identity. We find little evidence that other private or subjective aspects of religiosity affect life satisfaction independent of attendance and congregational friendship.Publication What's So Darned Special about Church Friends?(American Sociological Association, 2012) Putnam, RobertPublication Secular and Liminal: Discovering Heterogeneity among Religious Nones(Wiley-Blackwell, 2010) Lim, Chaeyoon; MacGregor, Carol Ann; Putnam, RobertThis study examines the stability of religious preference among people who claim no religious preference in national surveys (i.e., religious nones). Using data from the Faith Matters Study, General Social Survey, and American National Election Study, we show that about 30 percent of religious nones in the first wave of the survey claim an affiliation with a religious group a year later. The percentage of religious nones remained stable in the two waves because a similar number of respondents moved in the opposite direction. Using various measures of religiosity, we show that most of these unstable nones report no significant change in religious belief or practice. We call them liminal nones as they stand halfway in and halfway out of a religious identity. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings on the controversies surrounding the rise of religious nones in recent years.Publication Still Bowling Alone? The Post-9/11 Split(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010) Sander, Thomas; Putnam, RobertThe crisis of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has sparked a surge of increased civic engagement by young people in the United States, but there is also evidence of a growing divide along class lines.