Date

2013

Author

Yildirim Yenier, Zümrüt

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The present thesis aimed to investigate everyday violations in terms of a sociocultural variable, i.e. religiousness. For this purpose, first, a qualitative pilot study was done within the framework of the Social Representations Theory to uncover the collective understanding about ordinary problems and their relation to religion/ religiousness. Interviews were done with 27 participants (14 male, 13 female) who were left free to articulate whatever they considered as problematic in the society. Since the topic was broad and should be narrowed down, interviews started with asking about problems in a typical everyday context, i.e. road environment; afterwards, other problems were asked. Results revealed that interpersonal violations (traffic as a subarea), rule violations (traffic as a subarea), and environmental violations were the prevailing acts in the Turkish society. Moreover, participants heavily mentioned that there was a lack of relationship between religion and traffic problems. However, they mostly claimed that religion ideally influenced, i.e. had the potential to decrease, other problems. Based on the pilot study, the main (questionnaire) study was done to investigate individual differences regarding the topic. In this sense, religiousness was considered as a multidimensional construct including religious orientation, religious belief, and religious practice. Violations were taken from the pilot study and empirically categorized into traffic violations, misdemeanors, and interpersonal violations. Furthermore, as probable mediator variables, moral emotions and social norms were taken into account. The data were collected on the internet via questionnaires. The sample was examined in regard to study purposes and 247 participants remained in the analyses. Results revealed that religiousness was not directly but indirectly related to everyday violations. Accordingly, religious practice positively predicted guilt which in turn negatively predicted traffic violation as well as interpersonal violation. Besides, intrinsic religious orientation positively predicted guilt which in turn negatively predicted interpersonal violation. The findings were evaluated in terms of social desirability. Limitations, contributions, and implications of the study and suggestions for future research were also provided.

Subject Keywords

Violence., Urban violence., Violence, Religion and social problems., Religion and sociology., Social psychology., Psychology Phd thesis

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12616328/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/22892

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis