The Religious Factor in Detroit: Review, Replication, and Reanalysis

Abstract

In 1958 the Detroit Area Study dealt with religion in the metropolitan community and the resulting data became the basis for much of Lenski's The Religious Factor (1963). The 1966 Detroit Area Study repeated a number of the questions dealing specifically with the application of the Protestant Ethic hypothesis to Protestant-Catholic comparisons in America. One important question was successfully replicated, but other relevant questions failed to show reliable differences between Protestants and Catholics. Reanalysis of Lenski's original data using 1966 sample restrictions yields results consistent with both the single success and the several failures to replicate. Possible reasons for the largely negative outcome of the investigation are discussed: value changes over time, differences in population definitions by the two surveys, and lack of reliability for part or all of the original 1958 findings.