154 Darren Sherkat
the impact of socialization. Following Amartya Sen (1973,1993), I identify three types
of social influences on religious choices: (a) sympathy/antipathy; (b) example setting;
and (c) sanctions (Sherkat 1997, 1998; Sherkat and Wilson 1995).
People often participate in religious groups out of sympathy for the feelings of
others, despite receiving little or no benefit from the supernatural compensators sup-
ported by the collective activities. Adult children may attend church with aging parents
to make parents feel better, despite being agnostic or even ill at ease with the collec-
tive benefits generated by religious activities (Sherkat 1998). In contrast, individuals
sometimes participate in religious groups not because they desire the collective good
generated, but instead to antagonize others who are held in disdain – an antipathetic
motivation for action. Antipathy seems to direct religious choices for many participants
in neopagan and “Satanic” audience cults and cult movements (Stark and Bainbridge
1985). Rather than deriving religious benefits from the actions supporting pagan or
Satanist supernatural explanations, most participants seem to relish the negative im-
pact their blasphemy has on devout Christians. Notably, both sympathy and antipathy
imply considerable agency for individuals making choices. Here, participants act not
because of a mechanistic link between social ties and religious understandings but,
instead, as a choice to reward or punish valued or detested others. This avoids the com-
mon problem of oversocialized views of actors in cultural theorizing (e.g., Granovetter
1973; Frank 1993).
Example-setting is another potential social motivation for religious choices that
does not involve preferences for religious goods. People may affiliate with religious
groups and attend religious services because they wish to set an example for others.
Parents are likely to join churches and attend religious services not because they find
the supernatural compensators and rewards appealing, but instead to set an example for
their children. Faculty members at religious schools and public political officials may
also participate in order to exemplify pious behavior. However, public religionists may
instead be seeking tangible rewards for their hypocritical participation (Heckathorn
1993), or avoiding punishments for impiety. Here, the motivation would not be pref-
erences for the religious goods, nor example-setting or sympathy; instead religious par-
ticipation is motivated by selective incentives and disincentives (McCarthy and Zald
1977; Hall 1988). If selective rewards or punishments are strong enough, individuals
may participate in religious actions that produce collective bads (such as collective
suicides, proscriptions that limit members’ occupational attainment), and people will
engage in the overconsumption of religious goods for the sake of social rewards (Ellison
and Sherkat 1995; Phillips 1998; Sherkat and Cunningham 1998).
Religious pursuits are no different from other behaviors in this regard. Social sanc-
tions cause people to buy clothes they do not prefer to wear; to drink repulsive drinks; to
smoke cigars; pursue deviant careers; buy expensive, unsafe, and unreliable automo-
biles; and so on (Akerlof 1997; Bernheim 1994; Bagwell and Bernheim 1996). Religious
groups generate nonreligious social rewards by giving participants access to mating mar-
kets, contacts for business, friendship networks for children, social status in the commu-
nity, and the like. Religious consumption may also prevent people from experiencing
punishments such as social isolation, economic insecurity, and violent repression. The
importance of social rewards and sanctions demonstrates even more clearly that per-
sonal preferences are not all that determine religious action. Social influences are not
simply through socialization or endogenously changing preferences because choices are