Religious Orientation, Personality, and Attitudes About Human Stem Cell Research

Abstract

Human stem cell research has revived long-standing debates regarding the sanctity and beginning of life. The current study addresses the issue by examining the ability of selected religiosity and personality variables to predict attitudes regarding stem cell research. Participants were given questionnaires measuring attitudes regarding stem cell research, along with the Need for Closure scale, the Internal Control Index, the Need for Uniqueness scale, religious orientation scales, and the Literal-Antiliteral-Mythological scale. Results indicate that those who hold more traditional religious beliefs are likely to oppose stem cell research for moral reasons, whereas those who have a more open-ended approach to religion are likely to be in favor of such research. Results also showed that personality variables were helpful in predicting people's confidence in institutions' ability to manage the ethical questions surrounding such research.

Notes

¹Participants' mean age was 20 years old (range = 18–39). They tended to self-identify as White (60%), with 35% identifying as an African American and the remaining 4% of the sample identifying as Hispanic, Asian, or other. Approximately one third of the participants reported being Southern Baptists (36%), whereas 16% marked “Other Christian,” 16% described themselves as “Other Baptist,” and 12% as United Methodist. No other denomination comprised more than 10% of the sample.

²Given the extreme skewness of the demographic variables in our study, no meaningful predictive analyses can be computed. Examining possible trends in the data through correlational analyses between the stem cell and embryonic scales with the demographic variables of gender, age, ethnicity, and denominational affiliation offers little to no evidence of these variables being meaningfully related, r_pb (124) < 0.22. The forgoing conclusion is further supported when examining cell means, all Fs < 1. Therefore, the results of the study are more indicative of a younger White female Baptist sample. However, such a sample was expected and its relative homogeneity is well-suited for theoretical testing (Mook, 1983). If the purpose of our study was to test for denominational or geographic differences in people's attitudes about human stem cell research, our sample would be inadequate. Instead, the research represents an initial investigation into the theoretical relationships between the chosen religious and personality variables and attitudes regarding stem cell research.

³The entire item list is omitted for sake of space but may be obtained from the first author.

*p < .05.