Amy M. Burdette

Bio: Amy M. Burdette is an academic researcher from Florida State University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Attendance & Religiosity. The author has an hindex of 27, co-authored 68 publications receiving 2638 citations. Previous affiliations of Amy M. Burdette include Mississippi State University & University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Conservative Protestantism and tolerance toward homosexuals: An examination of potential mechanisms

Abstract: Summary of Research on Religion and ToleranceBeatty and Walter (1984)Bobo and Licari (1989)Ellison and Musick(1993)Hunter (1984)Loftus (2001)( continued )Measure of toleranceIndex ranging from 1 to4 for five groups, generaltolerance index for least-liked groupIndividual binary items forfive target groups, Overallcivil liberties index of15 items, college teachingsubscale, speaking, andlibrary book subscaleIndex of overall tolerancecreated from 15 items,group specific indices forfive groupsCivil liberties index rangingfrom highly tolerant tohighly intolerant.Index ranging from 0 (norestrictions on civil liberties)to 3 (all restrictions)concerning homosexualsConclusionsDenominationsusually characterizedas fundamentalists areless tolerant of all groups.Tolerance decreases withincreased church attendance.Education leads to an increasein tolerance, taking intoaccount negative feelingstoward the target group.Protestants are least tolerantamong religious groups.Prominence of fundamentalProtestantism contributes tointolerance, but does notaccount for native southernantipathy toward left-winggroups.Evangelicals, with someexceptions, are committedto liberal traditions of socialand political tolerance.There has been a declinein willingness to restrictcivil liberties to homosexuals.Fundamentalist Protestants aremost willing to restrict thecivil liberties of homosexuals.DataGSS 1976, 1977, 1980GSS 1984GSS 1988Evangelical AcademyProjectGSS 1973–1998Religious groupings16 Protestantdenominations, Mormons,Jehovah’s Witness,Christian, Catholic,Jewish, noneJewish, Catholic,Protestant, andnonreligiousControl for fundamentalProtestantEvangelical collegestudents, public universitycollege studentsFundamentalist/Moderate Protestant,Catholic, Jewish, otherreligion, and no religion

A Treatise on the Family

Abstract: A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

Socioeconomic Disparities in Health Behaviors

Abstract: The inverse relationships between socioeconomic status (SES) and unhealthy behaviors such as tobacco use, physical inactivity, and poor nutrition have been well demonstrated empirically but encompass diverse underlying causal mechanisms. These mechanisms have special theoretical importance because disparities in health behaviors, unlike disparities in many other components of health, involve something more than the ability to use income to purchase good health. Based on a review of broad literatures in sociology, economics, and public health, we classify explanations of higher smoking, lower exercise, poorer diet, and excess weight among low-SES persons into nine broad groups that specify related but conceptually distinct mechanisms. The lack of clear support for any one explanation suggests that the literature on SES disparities in health and health behaviors can do more to design studies that better test for the importance of the varied mechanisms.

Religion, Spirituality, and Health: The Research and Clinical Implications

Abstract: This paper provides a concise but comprehensive review of research on religion/spirituality (R/S) and both mental health and physical health. It is based on a systematic review of original data-based quantitative research published in peer-reviewed journals between 1872 and 2010, including a few seminal articles published since 2010. First, I provide a brief historical background to set the stage. Then I review research on R/S and mental health, examining relationships with both positive and negative mental health outcomes, where positive outcomes include well-being, happiness, hope, optimism, and gratefulness, and negative outcomes involve depression, suicide, anxiety, psychosis, substance abuse, delinquency/crime, marital instability, and personality traits (positive and negative). I then explain how and why R/S might influence mental health. Next, I review research on R/S and health behaviors such as physical activity, cigarette smoking, diet, and sexual practices, followed by a review of relationships between R/S and heart disease, hypertension, cerebrovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease and dementia, immune functions, endocrine functions, cancer, overall mortality, physical disability, pain, and somatic symptoms. I then present a theoretical model explaining how R/S might influence physical health. Finally, I discuss what health professionals should do in light of these research findings and make recommendations in this regard.

Short sleep duration and weight gain : a systematic review

Abstract: Objective: The recent obesity epidemic has been accompanied by a parallel growth in chronic sleep deprivation. Physiologic studies suggest sleep deprivation may influence weight through effects on appetite, physical activity, and/or thermoregulation. This work reviews the literature regarding short sleep duration as an independent risk factor for obesity and weight gain.