Is nation regressing in values?

America's views toward religion, gender, politics and economics are becoming more fundamentalist and less in line with other industrialized countries, says a U. professor.

Emma Gross, associate professor of sociology at the University of Utah, told a small audience at the U.'s Women's Resource Center on Tuesday that she has a long-standing interest in trying to make sense of events that feminists are concerned about regarding national politics.

"Those who have been following it for the last 20 years know we haven't been advancing."

She cited data gathered through an ongoing project called the World Values Survey, which measures attitudes on societal issues in nations around the globe, showing the United States lags behind other industrialized nations in western Europe, Australia and New Zealand when it comes to changing attitudes on topics including gay marriage, abortion and divorce.

Four different surveys have been administered since 1971, measuring attitudes in 70 nations that represent 80 percent of the world's population, she said, with a fifth wave of measurement now under way. "When we talk to people that are not sympathetic, it's helpful to be able to refer to valid statistical data."

Developing nations tend to group themselves with a "survivalist, traditionalist" orientation that is concerned with the survival of nuclear families, organized religion, absolute morality, patriotism and nationalism. They show a materialist orientation that rejects "out groups," values hard work and has a low level of interpersonal trust.

Industrialized nations tend more toward an emphasis on personal self-expression and a secular-rational orientation that values multiple family forms, personal spirituality over organized religion, situational morality and a global worldview. Such nations value inclusiveness, trust, freedom of expression and imagination/experimentation, she said.

Since the Reagan era, the survey data show the United States has "slipped in its progress" in the latter category, Gross said. Several world meetings involving conservative leaders from around the globe have had a definite impact on American societal trends, she said, noting in particular the World Congress of Families II in 1999 and the Beijing Women's Conference in 2004, where united religious orthodoxy was opposed to feminist agendas.

She defined the conservative movement worldwide as including not just evangelical Christians but Vatican-led conservative Catholics as well as conservative Jews and Muslims.