Atheism, social networks and health: A review and theoretical model

Abstract

Despite accumulating evidence of the importance of social capital in predicting health outcomes, no work has yet systematically investigated the structural differences between the social networks of god-believers and atheists. This is an especially important gap in the religion/secularism research because religiosity appears to be declining throughout the Western world (Zuckerman, Galen & Pasquale, 2016). Despite stereotypes of atheists as atomized, psychologically unhealthy and anti-social (e.g., Bainbridge, 2005), a growing body of evidence suggests that strongly-identified atheists are more likely to join secular social clubs as well as benefit from better mental and physical health compared to less affirmatively-identified secular individuals. As a step toward developing this line of research, the present article operationalizes social network structure within the study of secularism, discusses the available research with a focus on atheism in particular, and integrates this research into a schematic theoretical model of atheist self-identity, network structure and health.