The famous idea that East Asians balance multiple religions is actually just a misunderstanding of how we ask questions.
April 15, 2026
Original Paper
Apple versus Orange: Exaggerated Multiple Religious Belief in East Asia
SocArXiv · u9zaj_v1
The Takeaway
For decades, sociologists claimed that people in East Asia harmoniously practice Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism all at once. This study reveals that this 'multi-religious' phenomenon is largely an artifact of measurement error, where researchers confused cultural familiarity with actual religious devotion. When you look closer, the 'multi-belief' pattern evaporates once you account for how people simply interact with their heritage. It turns out that people aren't necessarily devoted to three gods; they are just living in a culture that references three histories. For us, this means a fundamental 'fact' about Eastern spirituality might actually be a simple linguistic glitch.
From the abstract
Recent scholarship proposes that East Asians commonly hold multiple religious beliefs simultaneously, even when they report a single religious identity or none at all. This note argues that this claim is substantially exaggerated due to a measurement mismatch: what GES-based studies operationalize as religious belief is better understood as ambient cultural familiarity. Using probability sample data from the 2023 Pew Research Center Survey of Religion and Spirituality in East Asian Societies acr