To view the full survey, click here.
Analysis
This survey indicates that in UUs, there is a significant portion of people who both experience high levels of motivation to act sustainably and are motivated by positively-associated feelings such as hope, pride, curiosity, and excitement. While further study would need to be conducted to determine if the two correlate, this is an interesting insight notheless.
This survey also indicates that UUs are more likely to accept being motivated with positively-associated emotions rather than negatively-associated ones (desperation, guilt, frustration, dissaproval), despite the fact that they were just as motivated by a positive emotions prompted by Image 2 as they were by a negative emotions prompted by Image 3.
See left Image 2, See right Image 3
Sampling strategy and methodology
“The Unitarian Universalist Association Bylaws require congregations to have 30 adult charter members to be considered for affiliation,” (UUA.org, a). The UUA recognizes 35 congrgations in their directory (UUA.org, b), which comes to a total of an estimated 1050 UUs in the state of Ohio. However, congregations may vary drastically in size and not all charter members remain active in their organization. Additionally, many people who identify as UU may also identify with multiple other religious groups (Jewish-UUs and Buddhist-UUs, for example). Therefore, it is nearly impossible to determine an accurate estimate of the number of UUs in the state of Ohio.
To define a clearer sample, I targeted active UU communities by cross referencing the UUA’s Ohio congregation directory list with congregations that had physical addresses, active phone numbers, and websites or facebook pages produced a list of 11 congregations. Of the 11 I reached out to, 6 congregations responded to the survey. This comes to a new estimate of 330 minimum active UUs in the state of Ohio. However, there are larger congregations as well. Assuming that the average congregation size is 150 members (knowing that there are some larger than 150 members and some much smaller), that totals to 1650 estimated UUs in Ohio.
With 62 responses, my survey represents an estimated 4% of all UUs in Ohio.
Recruitment
I reached out to the reverend of my home church and the office person of another local UU church. They both offered to send my survey out to their mailing lists.
For the other 9 congregations, I blind CC’d their office contacts and reverend personal contacts, if available. In the email I introduced myself, my project, and asked if they would be willing to respond. I did not recieve any emails back, however, respondees from some of those congregations responded notheless.
References
- Unitarian Universalist Association. (n.d.). Congregational membership in the
unitarian universalist association. UUA.org. Retrieved September 18, 2024,
from https://www.uua.org/leaderlab/congregational-cycles/handbook/
becoming-a-congregation/membership-uua - Unitarian Universalist Association. (n.d.). Directory. UUA.org. Retrieved
September 18, 2024, from https://my.uua.org/directory/congregations/
search?page=1&search%5Bstate%5D%5B%5D=OH
