Mississippi, Alabama and other Southern states are among the most highly religious states in the nation, while New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine in New England are among the least devout, according to some of the key measures used to determine levels of religiosity in the Pew Research Center’s most recent Religious Landscape Study.
How religious is your state? To begin, select a state to see where it ranks in terms of overall religiosity. In exploring the interactive it is important to keep in mind that differences between states may not always be statistically significant due to the margins of error that are inherent in this survey data.
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How we measured religiousity
Respondents are assigned a score of 1 on each of the four measures on which they exhibit a high level of religious observance, a score of 0 on each of the measures on which they exhibit a medium level of religious observance, and a score of -1 on each measure on which they exhibit a low level of religious observance.
High religious observance is defined as saying religion is very important in one’s life, attending religious services at least once a week, praying at least once a day, and believing in God with absolute certainty. Medium religious observance is defined as saying religion is somewhat important in one’s life, attending religious services once or twice a month or a few times a year, praying between a few times a week and a few times a month, and believing in God with less than absolute certainty. Respondents are also assigned a medium score on any questions they declined to answer. Low religious observance is defined as saying that religion is “not too” or “not at all” important in one’s life, seldom or never attending religious services, seldom or never praying, and saying that one does not believe in God.
The scores for each of these four individual items are then summed; respondents who score a 2 or higher are categorized as “high” on the scale (i.e. they are “highly religious”), those who score between -1 and 1 are categorized as “medium” on the scale, and those scoring -2 and below are categorized as “low” on the scale.
Cronbach’s alpha for the scale is .851 and is not improved if any variable is deleted from the scale.
Differences between two states may not always be statistically significant due to the margins of error that are inherent in this survey data.
