Comments on: Attitude and behaviour

By: Bene Diction

Bene Diction — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 08:18:14 +0000

Yikes is right!
We allow government, business and culture to criminalize the language of poverty and by extension criminalize the poor.
What scares me is how unaware we are of these beliefs and attitudes creeping into our lives.
Sometimes I try to talk to the person who makes a callous comment like that, I certainly pray for them, but sometimes I just grieve.

By: kendra

kendra — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 07:26:41 +0000

I took your survey and I’ll be curious to see the results. As a christian who teaches in a high poverty environment, I’m always very frustrated by the lack of interests of christians in helping the “poor.” In fact, when talking about poverty in my church (and its complexity), one man actually suggested, albeit jokingly, that people in poverty should be “sterilized.” Yikes!

By: Mark Vincent

Mark Vincent — Fri, 28 May 2004 18:37:10 +0000

I’m still here… but I’ve emailed Jason (via his link) directly. I’ll enjoy discussing this issue publicly very soon! I’m up to 420 respondents. Thanks to Jason and all who have given their time to this effort.

By: James

James — Fri, 28 May 2004 08:28:59 +0000

I did feel that several of the questions assumed a Protestant/ non-Christian dualism that was hard to work around. For example, the question on “sharing my faith;” I wanted to say that I do share my faith, but suspected that it would be interpreted as “proselytism,” rather than, for example, prayer and service.

Also there were many questions about Bible studies, but few about, for example, prayer groups or prayer services.

By: LivingRoom >> A space for Life

LivingRoom >> A space for Life — Fri, 28 May 2004 07:06:45 +0000

Love Thy Neighbor Survey

Bene Diction points to an interesting survey that a social psychology professor named Dr. Mark Vincent is trying to find Christians to fill in. Its on the topic of ‘Love Thy Neighbor’. Check out the survey on this interesting topic….

By: LivingRoom >> A space for Life

LivingRoom >> A space for Life — Fri, 28 May 2004 07:06:45 +0000

Love Thy Neighbor Survey

By: Molly

Molly — Fri, 28 May 2004 02:15:53 +0000

Had similar problems with the survey questions as others have cited. I answered all the questions about the attitudes of “poor people” with a 3, since I don’t think I can generalise about “poor people” as a homogenous group!

Also didn’t know how to answer the Q about “praying for non-Christians” - of course I pray for them, as for non-Xians. Duh. But not to be “saved.”

And I had a problem I haven’t seen mentioned yet answering the demographic Qs, because we don’t do membership in my faith community. I don’t belong to a denomination or a church but I attend one several times most week. I consider myself a participant, not a member.

Also generally had a problem with the word “religious.” I would have answered quite differently if the word “spiritual” were used instead. Don’t know if this will matter for your results.

I like the overall concept, of looking at the relationship between people’s expressed faith/beliefs and their actions and beliefs towards “the least of these.”

By: Jason Wall

Jason Wall — Thu, 27 May 2004 17:32:02 +0000

I’m not being much help, but a friend of mine recently used a free survey site that did a better job. If I can find it I’ll post the link here.

By: Mark Vincent

Mark Vincent — Thu, 27 May 2004 01:14:10 +0000

Jason,

Boy, I hate to “cop out” twice with the same excuse, but there are VERY few previous studies that have looked at some of these issues– and I borrowed 3 existing measures from one of such recent study. I agree completely that it can be hard to answer some of the questions, but overall I didn’t find sufficient justification to reinvent the wheel. So, I adopted it warts and all.

For what it is worth, I’ve never seen a study on topics like this where every question made complete sense, was free of alternative interpretations, and was easy to answer. Some are definitely better than others, and they can *always* be improved. In terms of research, I had to make the tough call of staying with an established measure that seemed “o.k.”, or going to the trouble of creating a new one. As it is, the survey you took does include one new measure that I’m developing– the previous measures on that particular topic were “that bad.” I thought it best to take it one step at a time.
Very good feedback regarding the survey software. I’ll look into it. The one I’m using has the advantage of being absolutely FREE. It is also relatively easy to put a survey together, and it packages the data quite nicely as well. I’m aware that HTML programming can arrange for unique identifiers to automatically be passed along as one “submits” a page… I’ll see if I can find someone who knows how to do that on the next one.

I took the survey for a test drive before opening it, and it felt clunky but functional to me… sort of like my car. I guess I’d call it “serviceable.”

Mark

By: Jason Wall

Jason Wall — Wed, 26 May 2004 23:15:10 +0000

I’d give it some more time… as the link get’s picked up by other people.

I took the survey, but I’m going to chime in with Mumcat on some of the questions, the intent seemed in conflict with the options. I hesitated to answer some questions because the answers didn’t take into account all the possibilities.

I had a particularly hard time with the first set of questions about what common attitudes poor people had.

Some other suggestions, the survey service was clunky. Having to enter your identifier each time made it inconvenient, and having to click an extra link to go to the next page was also an annoyance. Both items could have been avoided. You might try looking for a better survey host next time.
Anyway, hope the suggestions help. Good luck with your work.