3 generalizations seem well established concerning the relationship between subjective religion and ethnic prejudice: (a) On the average churchgoers are more prejudiced than nonchurchgoers; (b) the relationship is curvilinear; (c) people with an extrinsic religious orientation are significantly more prejudiced than people with an intrinsic religious orientation. With the aid of a scale to measure extrinsic and intrinsic orientation this research confirmed previous findings and added a 4th: people who are indiscriminately proreligious are the most prejudiced of all. The interpretations offered are in terms of cognitive style.Previous psychological and survey research has established three important facts regarding the relationship between prejudiced attitudes and the personal practice of religion.1. On the average, church attenders are more prejudiced than nonattenders.2. This overall finding, if taken only by itself, obscures a curvilinear relationship. While it is true that most attenders are more prejudiced than nonattenders, a significant minority of them are less prejudiced.3. It is the casual, irregular fringe members who are high in prejudice; their religious motivation is of the extrinsic order. It is the constant, devout, internalized members who are low in prejudice; their religious motivation is of the intrinsic order.The present paper will establish a fourth important finding-although it may properly be regarded as an amplification of the third. The finding is that a certain cognitive style permeates the thinking oj many people in such a way that they are indiscriminately proreligious and, at the same time, highly prejudiced, But first let us make clear the types of evidence upon which the first three propositions are based and examine their theoretical significance. CHURCHGOERS ARE MORE PREJUDICEDBeginning the long parade of findings demonstrating that churchgoers are more intolerant of ethnic minorities than nonattenders is a study by Allport and Kramer (1946). These authors discovered that students who claimed no religious affiliation were less likely to be anti-Negro than those who declared themselves to be protestant or Catholic. Furthermore, students reporting a strong religious influence at home were higher in ethnic prejudice than students reporting only slight or no religious influence. Rosenblith (1949) discovered the same trend among students in South Dakota. The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950, p. 212) stated that scores on ethnocentricism (as well as on authoritarianism) are significantly higher among church attenders than among nonattenders. Cough's (1951) findings were similar, Kirkpatrick (1949) found religious people in general to be slightly less humanitarian than nonreligious people. For example, they had more punitive attitudes toward criminals, delinquents, prostitutes, homosexuals, and those in need of psychiatric treatment. Working with a student population Rokeach (1960) discovered nonbelievers to be consistently less dogmatic, les...

3 generalizations seem well established concerning the relationship between subjective religion and ethnic prejudice: (a) On the average churchgoers are more prejudiced than nonchurchgoers; (b) the relationship is curvilinear; (c) people with an extrinsic religious orientation are significantly more prejudiced than people with an intrinsic religious orientation. With the aid of a scale to measure extrinsic and intrinsic orientation this research confirmed previous findings and added a 4th: people who are indiscriminately proreligious are the most prejudiced of all. The interpretations offered are in terms of cognitive style.

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