Examining religious and spiritual predictors of poverty attributions

In this study, we investigated how religion and spirituality were associated with internal or external attributions for the causes of poverty. Such attributions are important as they may shape the types of policies and interventions that individuals support to alleviate poverty. Across two studies with samples of Christian students from a Catholic university in the Midwest (Study 1: n = 245) and a large Midwestern university (Study 2: n = 791), multiple regression analyses revealed that religious variables including religious attendance, religious conservatism, and literal interpretation of sacred text predicted internal poverty attributions whereas a spirituality variable, universality, predicted external poverty attributions. These findings were present while controlling for demographic variables, political conservatism, and the Protestant work ethic and were consistent across Study 1 and Study 2. Overall, this shows the unique ability of religious and spiritual variables to predict these different types of poverty attributions. Limitations and directions for future research and working with religious and spiritual communities are discussed