Spatial Choice of Adherents' Religious activities of Folk Beliefs in Taiwan：A Behavioral Analysis

• Main Authors: Wang, Ching-Ju, 王靖茹
• Other Authors: Liu, Han-Kui
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/62778956381735364814

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 地理學系 === 92 === Abstract In the last twenty years, research on religious geography in Taiwan has made a significant contribution to the field of religious studies. This body of research has focused mainly on the analyses of religious sphere and sacred space of folk beliefs, with traditional social relations and certain spatial aspects of group images, respectively, as core theories of research. It seemed that these studies have nothing to do with rational behavior of participants of religious activities. Evidence showed that, however, behavior of certain non-economic activities was observed to follow similar behavioral principles or rules guiding that of economic activities. The research question of this study is, therefore, whether or not religious activities, usually regarded as highly sacred, follow the same behavioral rules of activities of everyday life. Positive findings of this research will be beneficial to the field of religious geography. This study hypothesizes that religious activities of folk beliefs in Taiwan are outcomes of adherents’ rational choices, which will be influenced by factors such as travel costs and locational attributes of religious activities. In this study, attributes of individual adherents and their actual spatial choices are observed and recorded. This is done at the seven selected temples of folk beliefs in the town of Ta-Chia. A series of Chi square tests of homogeneity are performed to test the research hypotheses. Results show that service areas of stand-alone temples are relatively smaller, and there is no overlap of these service areas. On the other hand, service areas of temples at locations with other activities are more extensive, and that of one special temple even covers almost the entire western Taiwan. In addition, results of Chi square tests show that attributes of adherents are significantly different in terms of their spatial choices of temples with various locational attributes. It is clear that travel costs and locational attributes of religious facilities have certain influence on adherents’ spatial choice behavior of folk beliefs. It can be concluded that religious activities of folk beliefs are similar to activities of everyday life, in the sense that they share the same decision-making mechanism of utility maximization or cost minimization, and therefore, they both represent the outcomes of rational behavior of participants. Key words：Geography of Religion、Rational Behavior、Spatial Choice