Individual and contextual moderators of the relationship between authoritarianism and religiosity

Social scientists have devoted much attention to explaining individual and contextual variation in religiosity. Among other things, authoritarianism is reliably found to be associated with greater religiosity. Though education and human development are often thought to reduce religiosity, we show in this study that the relationship between authoritarianism and various indices of religiosity is stronger in the presence of greater educational attainment and living in a society with a higher level of human development. Using two large cross-cultural data sets from the World Values Survey, we find evidence that authoritarianism is more strongly associated with religious involvement and practice among individuals at higher levels of education and individuals living in societies with higher level of human development. Thus, we demonstrate that the connection between authoritarianism and religiosity is contingent on both individual-level and societal moderators.