Relationship “Experts” Rip on Atheists

This is what the article cited has to say about the relationship between religiosity and what it calls EMI (extramarital involvement):

“Religiosity, defined in a number of ways, has also been examined as a possible factor related to EMI. There is no evidence for a differential prevalence of EMI among different religious denominations (Edwards & Booth, 1976; Forste & Tanfer, 1996; Greeley, 1994), although those who endorse no religious affiliation do report higher rates of EMI (Greeley, 1994). Frequency of attending religious services and the self-reported religiosity of the respondent appear negatively related to both permissive attitudes regarding EMI (Cochran & Beeghley, 1991; Kraaykamp, 2002; Scheepers, Te Grotenhuis, & Van Der Slik, 2002; Smith, 1994) and actual history of engaging in EMI (Amato & Rogers, 1997; Atkins et al., 2001; Buunk, 1980; Choi et al., 1994; Hunt, 1976; Janus & Janus, 1993; Kinsey et al., 1953; Lawson & Samson, 1988). A minority of studies have found no significant relation between religious participation and lifetime prevalence of EMI (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983; Spanier and Margolis, 1983), but Spanier and Margolis did find that the less religious the respondent, the earlier in the marriage he or she began the EMI. Controlling for other variables (e.g., permissive attitudes towards EMI) may affect the relation between religious attendance and EMI (Treas & Giesen, 2000). Atkins et al. found an interaction between religion and marital satisfaction, indicating that religious participation seemed to lower the risk of EMI particularly for those in very happy marriages; by contrast, those participants in ‘‘pretty happy’’ or ‘‘not too happy’’ marriages showed little or no effect of religious participation on their rates of EMI. Overall, greater religiosity is related to lower rates of EMI; however, the protective effects of religious involvement may depend on the levels of other salient variables such as marital satisfaction.”

This appears in a discussion of a whole host of factors possibly linked to EMI, and I think the take-away message of the article appears in that last sentence: religiosity is one factor mitigated by many others.

and btw, wtf?! those who crave excitement more likely to cheat? how vague can you be? does that mean somebody like travis pastrana is more likely to cheat because he jumps motorcycles off cliffs?

Hopefully the girls I’m looking for don’t look to some washed up UPN actor for dating advice, otherwise I’m screwed.

Steve Harvey needs to be called on that. There is absolutely no excuse to for that kind of blatant bigotry. As for Dr. Gonzaga, the fact that the article was written on eHarmony raises read flags, but without being able to read the study, it’s hard to say whether the numbers are being fudged.

Also an atheist married to an atheist – for 25 years. We have three children, also atheists, who have grown into kind, intelligent, thoughtful adults.

I married my husband because we share values, such as respecting our fellow humans because this life is all we get, and a deep love of animals and Monty Python. He’s smart, nice and loves his family. He’s a good father and my friend. All of these things are so much more important than how he spends his Sunday mornings.

Our marriage has not been perfect, but any bumps have been smoothed over because we care for each other and our children too much to just give up. Not because some book or preacher said divorce is wrong. And we haven’t been cheating although our “godly” friends have had numerous affairs. Even our Mormon neighbors. The husband was screwing his secretary.

My advice for single atheists would be to look for someone who has the qualities you would want in a best friend. Someone who accepts you for who you are and loves you even on your worst day. Danger signs regardless of religious status are simple. Run far from anyone who has anger issues, addictions, won’t introduce to their family or friends, tries to “improve” you, or makes you feel anything but happy and relaxed in their presence.

A couple weeks ago, Dr. Gian Gonzaga wrote an article for eHarmony in which the following was stated:

There are types of people that are more vulnerable to engage in affairs. It’s probably not surprising that men are more likely to cheat (especially those who feel powerless and socially isolated), but both genders can easily fall into the following groupings:

* Those who crave excitement

* Those who have a history of divorce, sexual abuse or such psychological problems as depression or bipolar disorder

* Those who are not religious

The title of the cited research::

Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Contextual Factors in Engaging in and Responding to Extramarital Involvement

The abstract:

Abstract

Extramarital involvement (EMI) occurs with high prevalence among couples in clinical and community settings, frequently resulting in considerable distress both to participants and their spouses. The field lacks a synthesized review of this literature. Without such a synthesis, it has been difficult for researchers and clinicians to have an understanding of what is and is not known about EMI. This article reviews the large and scattered EMI literature using a framework that encompasses multiple source domains across the temporal process of engaging in and responding to EMI. In addition, this review delineates conceptual and methodological limitations to previous work in this area and articulates directions for further research.

Not one of Gian’s Gonzaga’s items is mentioned in either the title or the abstract. Perhaps more importantly, the abstract describes the study as a literature review, not an attempt to draw specific conclusions.

Just did a quick literature search on religiosity & infidelity – I was surprised by how few studies actually came up.

I found three recent studies, excluding the one above. Then I gave up, as I was supposed to be marking undergraduate research reports, not procrastinating by doing research out of my specialisation! Anyway, brief notes:

Atkins & Kessel (2008) note that it’s religious attendance rather than more implicitly motivated aspects of faith and prayer that predict infidelity – i.e. people who go to church are less likely to stray, rather than people who actually maintain a ‘relationship with god’. Interesting… extrinsic religiosity is more about what god can do for you, than what you can do for god, to paraphrase one of your leaders.

Whisman, Gordon and Chatav (2007) and Whisman and Snyder (2007) both found a similar relationship to the one mentioned in your article, but their assessment of religiosity is woefully inadequate, and I wouldn’t want to put any great faith in their explanations. There are well-established instruments to measure religiosity that take into account such factors as intrinsic religiosity, extrinsic religiosity and seekership as well as differentiating between religiosity and spirituality… and yet for example Whisman and Snyder (2007, p.149) measure it with two simple questions:

“Currently, how important is religion in your daily life? Would you say it is very important, somewhat important, or not important?” and “About how often do you attend religious services? Would you say more than once a week, once a week, 1–3 times per month, less than once a month, or never?” Items were scored such that higher scores indicate greater degree of religiosity.

Then, they go on to eradicate the little power to distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation by conflating the two questions into a single index of religiosity:

Because the two items were highly correlated (r=0.62), the mean of the standardized values of these two items was used to create a religiosity scale; items were standardized because of differences in scaling for the two items.

A shame really.

My guess, from reading around issues of religiosity rather than infidelity, would be that it would only be extrinsic religiosity that would predict infidelity. Further, it would be important to investigate marital satisfaction to see if the relationships themselves are any more successful than actual legal marriages.

Refs:
Atkins, D.C. & Kessel, D.E. (2008). Religiousness and infidelity: Attendance, but not faith and prayer, predict marital fidelity. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70 (2), 407-418.

Whisman, M.A. & Snyder, D.K. (2007). Sexual infidelity in a national survey of American Women: Differences in prevalence and correlates as a function of method of assessment. Journal of Family Psychology, (21) 2, 147-154.

Whisman, M.A., Gordon, K.C. & Chatav, Y. (2007). Predicting sexual infidelity in a population-based sample of married individuals. Journal of Family Psychology, (21) 2, 320-324.

Where can we email either Mr. Harvey or the clearly sensible Tyra?

A few 1,000 repetitions of “how do you pick and choose which lines to follow from the Bible?” should set them straight on where morals really come from.

Advice: do not marry preachers, they are too arrogant to care about you

My advice: don’t date anyone who takes Steve Harvey seriously.

That just completely shows Steve Harvey’s ignorance. Statements like this just expose how little some people think critically about philosophical matters. Very sad, very irritating.

That’s a fairly ignorant statement from Dr. Gonzaga. All of the people I know who have cheated on their spouses were serious fundamentalists. One of them was even an associate pastor of my old church, who was caught with the church secretary – in the church office! I’m sure it won’t surprise you to hear that he was the same person who gave all of the abstinence speeches to the youth.

On the flip-side, all of the non-religious people I know are in healthy, happy marriages.

The infidelity literature is marred by self report contamination. Almost every measure of “moral” behavior shows a discrepancy between self report (e.g., questionnaire) and actual behavior. And there is evidence that this gap increases with increasing religiosity. For example, highly religious people report that they are more honest and cheat less in many domains, but behavioral literature and experiments show there is not the case. This is likely to be the case with infidelity as well; a religious person is likely to be less willing to ADMIT infidelity. As another poster said, we know that the divorce rate is higher for fundamentalists and pentacostals compared to atheists. And the predictors mentioned in the research article (e.g., education, older age at marriage, etc) are in favor of atheists.

The problem with church attendence correlations like with infidelity and divorce is that they often do not take into account possible curvilinear relationships. For example, it may be that high attenders have lower infidelity than weak attenders or the “religious but not a member” people but often the completely non religious atheists look very different than the weakly religious on measures of morality; often they look more like the highly religious.

My ditto to Luke’s observation that any data gathered by self reporting is useless. As a marriage counselor, I interviewed many thousands of clients, and any question I asked where there was the slightest hint about the person’s conduct was answered with glossed-over generalities or exaggerated “good” behaviors drawn from social stereotypes of what admirable people are expected to do. Any objective measure of the client’s behavior would almost always show a less “good” set of behaviors. In short, they lied.

A master’s degree in psychology taught me that a large part of the body of psychological and sociological research is sheer bullshit. Trust your eyes, not your ears. You have to observe people in action for a long time to know what they are about. Self reporting is evidence of only one thing: The ability to speak.

So whether you’re looking for a partner in a relationship or assessing if a psychological study is reliable, ask yourself how much of the conclusion is from listening and how much is from watching. Observing takes time and people are impatient to ease their loneliness or to support their assertions about others, so we too often jump in with only a collection of words for guidance.

Back in our fundamentalist days, we and a whole bunch of our fundamentalist friends got married within within a few years of each other (all being about prime marrying age, ie. early 20s, just finished college, etc). Most of them continued on the fundy path, while we drifted off into the liberal church, and eventually atheism.

Through the grape vine, I find that a whole lot of our old crowd from those days are now divorced. But coming up on 29 years later, we’re still going strong, looking forward to retiring and growing old together….

I think the’re something about the fundamentalist ideal of “Christian marriage” that frequently obscures the important things that really make a relationship work over the long term, under a pile of superficial sanctimony. Not that every Christian marriage suffers from this, but those that succeed, I suggest, do so in spite of the Holy Help, not because of it.

Egad. It was just the opposite for me: Any hint that a guy was overtly religious was an immediate red flag. When I first started dating my husband, he told me that his degree was in comparative religion and I nearly gave up on him right there. (Fortunately he turned out to be an agnostic who had just chosen a really odd educational path.)

As some of the other commenters have suggested, the things to look for in a partner are similar interests and shared values. A sense of humor also really helps.

My atheist girlfriend is fine woman, especially when it comes to having a healthy relationship. And I’m Christian, so you know we must be doing something right if we can be together happily for over 3 years despite that difference!

If you want that study, “Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, and Contextual Factors in Engaging in and Responding to Extramarital Involvement” try here:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/118706634/HTMLSTART

or even just check out all of these http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118706633/issue

So then why does the bible belt have such a hefty divorce rate, and the godless northeast is so far below the national average?

According to federal figures:

Nationally, there were about 4.2 divorces for every thousand people in 1998.
The rate was 6.4 in Tennessee, 6.1 in Arkansas, 6.0 in Alabama and Oklahoma.
By contrast, the divorce rate is less than 3.0 in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York.

I hope the people that actually watch the Tyra Banks show follow that advice. That leaves more good atheist men for smart women who aren’t wasting their time on that silly show.

On the one hand, I’m thinking “what putzes.” On the other hand, I’m thinking “fair enough.” Were I in the dating game, I’d consider “do you believe in god” to be one of the essential questions and, potentially, a deal-breaker if answered in the positive. I just don’t have the time to muck about with someone who, at the end of the day, believes in magical sky-daddies. Earthly in-laws are more than enough hassle.

So to each their own. If that’s what’s important to them in a mate, more power to them.

The only thing I dislike is taking onto that the statement that atheists have no moral barometer. That’s not only offensive, it’s just plain wrong (and stupid, and bigoted).

“What should we look for in another person?”
-someone with a lifestyle and/or worldview compatible with your own
-someone who treats others in their lives with respect and patience
-someone who can fight fairly
-someone you’re attracted to
-someone you are capable of having fun with while doing ordinary things, not just romantic dates

“What should be our warning signs that this relationship won’t work out?”
-one or both of you feel the need to change each other
-one or both of you are not willing to prioritize the relationship
-one or both of you are inflexible and closed to compromise
-the obvious signs of trouble: abuse or violence of any kind, infidelity, addictions…

My sincere opinion as an Illinois native. The pickins are much different down here in Texas. Florida was a very good place also. Southern Cal was much more superficial in general terms but Illinois is a horrible place imo. It’s also a completely different scenario once you are in your early 30’s. Prior to that too many Illinois ladies think the earth revolves around them…imo.

As an Illinois native, I would respond to this by rolling my eyes, but I am too busy lighting the galaxy and providing warmth.

As for Mr. Harvey, I would point out that that atheists can be just as moral as the religious, or even more so, but I would rather the readers of his book snatch up all the religious people and leave the rest of us the atheists.

Thats a shame, because I like Steve Harvey. 😛

So, if you want to go to the section of the Tyra website with this clip it’s HERE

There have already been lots of people up in arms about the atheist comment on the message board, go leave one for yourself.

My atheist marriage is almost a year old!! But we’ve been together for 5. We have a wonderful open honest friendship as well.

Just thought I add mine to the list. 🙂

When Jeannie said:

“This guy’s a great big phony”

I literally LOLed

Lessee: this guy, about my age, is on marriage #3, cheated on ex #2, and then screwed here over during the divorce, and he’s writing a relationship advice book aimed at women? What woman in her right mind would listen to advice from an obvious jerk like this? Oh, right: he’s Born Again — the universal sanitizer that magically erases all past misconduct.

Let me guess: his conversion happened conveniently after his last divorce.

To be fair, one of the first things I want to know about a date is if she believes in God. Because, it is a problem if she does. I mean, for casual dating I guess it doesn’t matter, but if you’re talking about long term potential, it will get in the way of things.

“If a man believes anything he reads in a book of myths written from the imagination of ignorant bigots from barbaric cultures thousands of years ago then you need to pack it up and go home ladies.”

Fixed.

steve harvey is on his third wife. relationship expert? please. and further more, he is an example of how most blacks view atheism. i am a black atheist woman and i encounter this every day. blacks will support rapists, molesters, and murderers but if you are an atheist then, in the black community, you are beyond being saved. it disgusts me.

i know this is an old topic — sorry for being a necromancer — but steve harvey is apparently at it again on larry king this time.