Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Importance Of Culture-Fit For Remembering Church Sermons, Emily N. Adkins, Madelyn Mcknight, Jonathan S. Gore

Kentucky Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

This experiment tested the degree to which culture-fit influences memory for the content of a sermon. We hypothesized that people who read a sermon emphasizing the infallibility of Christian scriptures will remember it more accurately if they have collectivistic rather than individualistic values. In contrast, we hypothesized that people who read a sermon emphasizing the subjectivity of Christian scriptures will remember it more accurately if they have individualistic rather than collectivistic values. Participants (n = 270) were randomly assigned to read either an orthodox- or quest-oriented sermon regarding Peter 1:20-21. They then completed a true-false memory test as to …