Online Social Behaviors in the Context of Religiosity: A Neural-Networks-Supported Approach to Theists and Atheists

Abstract

Social media behaviors include those of a religious nature. This paper investigates psychological traits, perceptions, and attitudinal variables concerning manifestations of religiosity on social media of both theists and atheists, as the latter are more overlooked in previous studies. A total of 1358 participants completed a questionnaire. The results suggest associations between the studied variables and religiosity, and differences between theists and atheists. Additionally, this study incorporated artificial neural networks to verify whether religiosity may be grounds for a classification model in the case of online social behaviors. The model correctly predicted 79% of cases. This study examined religiosity from the perspectives of anxiety, coping, social support, discrimination, and social media expectations and behaviors, and showed that religiosity is an important factor to include in online social behavior studies.