Identity Importance and the Overreporting of Religious Service Attendance: Multiple Imputation of Religious Attendance Using the American Time Use Study and the General Social Survey

• Published in: Journal for the scientific study of religion Vol. 50; no. 1; pp. 103 - 115
• Main Author: Brenner, Philip S.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malden, USA Blackwell Publishing Inc 01.03.2011; Wiley Subscription Services; Wiley; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Attendance; Autobiographical Materials; Behavior; Christianity; Church attendance; Contemporary period; Datasets; Diary; General subjects; History and sciences of religions; Identity; identity importance; Modeling; multiple imputation; Regression analysis; Religion; Religiosity; religious attendance; Religious behaviour; Religious identity; Religious practice; Self reports; Social desirability; Social identity; Social research; Social surveys; Sociodemographic Factors; Sociological studies; Survey data; Surveys; Time; U.S.A; United States of America; Participation; Psychology of religion; Denominational identity; Sociology of religion; Religiosity
• ISSN: 0021-8294; 1468-5906
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-5906.2010.01554.x

The difference between religious service attendance measured using conventional surveys and time diaries has been attributed to identity processes; a high level of religious identity importance may prompt overreporting on a survey question. This article tests the hypothesized role of identity importance as an individual determinant of overreporting and the result of socially desirable behavior. A time diary measure of attendance (from the American Time Use Study 2003-2008) is imputed for conventional survey data (from the General Social Survey 2002-2008) using the multiple imputation for multiple studies procedure (Gelman, King, and Liu 1998a). Logistic regression models predicting self-reported attendance and overreported attendance are estimated using identity importance as a key covariate and controlling for demographic variables associated with attendance. Identity importance is a strong predictor of both self-reported and overreported attendance. Attendance, while a biased measure of actual behavior, may be a good indicator of religiosity.