Review of American Generosity: Who Gives and Why by Patricia Snell Herzog and Heather E. Price

Excerpt: In American Generosity, sociologists Patricia Herzog and Heather Price provide comprehensive, detailed, and realistic portraits of generosity among American adults. The research in this book was conducted as part of the University of Notre Dame’s Science of Generosity Initiative. In an earlier book, Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson described the paradox of generosity in which few Americans generously give despite the many benefits that generosity brings back to the giver. American Generosity sheds some light on why this paradox exists, asking: Who gives, who does not give, and why do some people give more than others

Religious Heterogamy, Marital Quality, and Paternal Engagement

Using data from a nationally representative sample of married fathers of school-aged children, we examined the association between religious heterogamy of parents and fathers’ involvement in children’s lives. We further examined whether that association is mediated by marital quality and father–child religious discord. Results showed that greater religious heterogamy is associated with less interaction and more relational distance between fathers and children. Results also suggested that fathers’ reports of marital happiness play an important role in mediating the association between religious heterogamy and paternal engagement. We concluded that religious fathers are more involved in their children’s lives insofar as their wives are equally religious and they are in happy marriages

Marital Investments and Community Involvement: A Test of Coser’s Greedy Marriage Thesis

It is customary to test Coser’s greedy marriage thesis by comparing marital status groups. We propose a new approach that uses the marital dyad as the unit of analysis and examine whether investments in the marital relationship discourage community involvement through formal volunteering. Data from a U.S. national sample of 1,368 married couples revealed mixed support for the proposed relationship. Consistent with the greedy marriage thesis, wives’ soulmate view of marriage was negatively associated with their own and their husbands’ reports of volunteering. Although these associations were attenuated by religious service attendance, wives’ soulmate view had a more dampening effect than husbands’ soulmate view on their own and their husbands’ volunteering. However, the time couples spend alone together was positively associated with husbands’ reports of volunteering, which counters the greedy marriage thesis. These findings suggest that the greedy nature of marriage is, in part, determined by its participants—how they define and manage their marriage

Bonding Alone: Familism, Religion, and Secular Civic Participation

This study examines the influence of familism, religion, and their interaction on participation in secular voluntary associations. We develop an insularity theory to explain how familism and religion encourage Americans to avoid secular civic participation. Using data from the first wave of the National Survey of Families and Households, this study finds that familism reduces participation in secular organizations. Moreover, religion moderates the effect of familism: specifically, religious involvement tends to increase the negative effect of familism on secular civic participation. Although religious involvement in and of itself fosters secular civic participation, strong familism tends to dampen positive impacts of religious involvement. For familistic individuals, religious congregations appear to reinforce their insularity within their immediate social circle and family

Religious Service Attendance and Volunteering: A Growth Curve Analysis

Despite methodological advances in studying the relationship between religious attendance and volunteering, its dynamic nature still needs to be elucidated. We apply growth curve modeling to examine whether trajectories of religious attendance and volunteering are related to each other over a 15-year period in a nationally representative sample from the Americans’ Changing Lives data (1986-2002). Multivariate results showed that the rates of change in religious attendance and volunteering were positively related, and excluding religious volunteering did not alter the finding. It was also found that the initial level of religious attendance was positively associated with the rate of increase in volunteer hours over the period. Mediation analyses revealed that participation in voluntary associations explained the dynamic relationships between religious attendance and volunteering. These results provide evidence that involvement in organized religion and volunteering are dual activities that change together over the adult life course

Synchrotron X-ray study of polycrystalline wurtzite Zn1-xMgxO (0 <= x <= 0.15): Evolution of crystal structure and polarization

The effect of Mg-substitution on the crystal structure of wurtzite ZnO is presented based on synchrotron X-ray diffraction studies of polycrystalline Zn1-xMgxO (0 <= x <= 0.15). Increase in Mg concentration results in pronounced c-axis compression of the hexagonal lattice, and in diminution of the off-center cation displacement within each tetrahedral ZnO4 unit. Going from ZnO to Zn0.85Mg0.15O, significant changes in the ionic polarization are observed (-5.6 to -4.8 uC/cm2), despite only subtle increments in the cell volume (~0.03 %) and the ab-area dimension (~0.1 %). The optical properties of the samples have also been characterized and the band gap changes from 3.24 eV (ZnO) to 3.35 eV (Zn0.85Mg0.15O).Comment: 9 Pages, Word + PDF, 3 Figures, 1 Tabl