As the number of nonreligious individuals has been increasing around the world, the team explored what exactly nonreligious beliefs and worldviews entail. Rather than assuming an absence of belief or imposing a predetermined set of beliefs, the research team used an open-ended approach to investigate which secular beliefs and worldviews nonreligious nontheistic individuals in ten countries around the world might endorse. In the study, approximately one thousand answers were analyzed (100 participants per country).
To analyze the answers, the team created a data-driven coding scheme, showing that the ten most frequently mentioned categories were science, humanism, critical skepticism, natural laws, equality, kindness and caring, care for the earth, left-wing political causes, atheism, and individualism and freedom. The research demonstrates that there is a range of secular beliefs, clustering together in scientific worldviews, humanist worldviews, and caring nature-focused worldviews, which provide answers the big questions about life.
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In a new study published in Human Nature, LEVYNA was part of a team lead by A.K. Willard, studying how witchcraft beliefs affect social norms and behaviors. Specifically, researchers investigated whether witchcraft is regarded to be motivated by envy and how this notion influences community interactions. The findings show that, while witchcraft accusations were common, they were mostly directed at persons suspected of acting out of envy.
In an ethnographic survey-based study published in the journal Religions, D. Xygalatas and P. Maňo looked at variation in motivations for ritual practice and how it relates to the socioeconomic status of respondents. The findings indicate that whereas people of lower socioeconomic standing address more immediate concerns related to material security and safety in their ritual practices, people at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum tend to focus on the fulfillment of spiritual, social, or cultural needs.
