The Affect of Religion on Norms in Societies - Sarah Seeliger

What Is Religion?

Religion, according to Crash Course, is "a social institution that involves a unified system of beliefs and practices that recognizes the sacred." There are many different religions in the world,  such as Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism, and they are each specific to different cultures and regions. Religion is also something that makes up a large part of a culture. 

The man who defined religion was the French sociologist Emile Durkheim. He also gave three major functions of religion. They are as follows:

1. Establish Social Cohesion - uniting people around a shared group of norms, values, and symbols. Religion promotes things like morality and justice

2. Form of Social Control -  people have good conduct because they want to stay on the "good side" of the being they worship

3. Provides a Sense of Purpose - the reason people say their lives matter is because it is part of a grand plan made by a god

Religion consists of symbols, doctrines, and teachings that are recorded in holy books such as the Bible (Jagodzinski 19). According to Wolfgang Jagodzinski, religion can only affect values if the values discussed are not part of the "meaning system" of the the religion, or if the meaning system is able to influence it's parts. Also according to Jagodzinksi, people's values, norms, and beliefs are rationally independent from each other. 




How Does Religion Affect Social Norms?

Religion affects the norms of society in a plethora of ways. A good example is how religion affects work ethic. There has been a lot of research done about how religion ties into occupational and economic success (Jagodzinski 21).  There are two levels that are distinguished during empirical research: micro level and and the macro level (Jagodzinski 19). The micro level is made up of individual people, and the macro level is people groups (Jagodzinski 19).

There is a hypothesis that people in societies that have a large Protestant population, but otherwise have multiple religions, are more likely to put emphasis on hard work and competitive activism (Jagodzinski 21).

Max Weber, the main person who researched religion and work ethic, stated that Confucianism does not have components of Protestant Ethics (Jagodzinski 21). However, there are some researchers that developed a Post - Confucianism thesis that includes many values of Capitalism, but also includes values specific to Asia that created an Asian version of Capitalism (Jagodzinski 22). The hypothesis is as follows: "The population in Asian countries with a Confucian tradition should, on average, attribute a higher importance to competitive activism, hard work, and thrift than people in other societies." (Jagodzinski 22).

There was a survey conducted across different cultural zones to see how important work is in these cultures (Jagodzinski 23). The scale was 1 - 4, one meaning very important, and 4 being not important at all (Jagodzinski 23). The results of the survey show that there is a high level of importance is placed on work, because the average on the survey never goes above 2.



My Observations 

From reading this article as well as gathering information by observing people I know, I can see that religion does have an affect on work and work ethic. I noticed that religion places high emphasis on the honesty of work, both academic and in a job. Another thing I have noticed is that religion emphasizes ethics in the workplace, meaning treating people fairly. 

While thinking about all the ways religion ties into work, I came to a realization. All of the things that bleed into work from religion can still be used in the workplace even if a person or group of people is not religious. Anyone can work hard, be honest, and work ethically.

I believe that sociology is a good approach to studying the relationship between religion and work ethic because it allows the researcher to look at it from the common person's point of view, and it also allows the researcher to look at the development of the relationship. A final reason sociology is good for studying this topic is that it allows researchers to look at how the relationship between religion and work ethics functions.  


Sources 

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