Appreciative Attitudes Toward Jews Among Non-Jewish US College Students

Interfaith Experiences and Their Relationship with Heterosexual Collegians’ Attitudes Toward Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual People

“…Further, both faculty and student affairs professionals should thoughtfully design opportunities in which students are prompted to consider their own views on and experiences with sexual identity and those of others-and they should assess the degree to which students have access to supportive spaces in which they can express their perspectives on the intersections between their personal worldview and attitudes toward sexual minorities. Ultimately, this research, coupled with studies showing the relationship between interfaith engagement and students' views of religious minority groups (e.g., Mayhew et al, 2018;Rockenbach et al, 2016), reinforces the necessity of including interfaith education and programming within the scope of campus diversity initiatives.…”

“…Beyond the value of friendship for shaping heterosexual collegians' attitudes toward members of the queer-spectrum community, our findings add texture to previous studies by revealing the positive implications of campus interfaith efforts for students' attitudes toward sexual minorities. Numerous studies have shown the role that religious beliefs play in such attitudes (e.g., Finlay & Walther, 2003;Holland et al, 2013), and research supports interfaith experiences as a means of fostering students' pluralism orientation and their perspectives toward religious minorities (Mayhew et al, 2018;Rockenbach et al, 2016Rockenbach et al, , 2015; yet, scholarship prior to this study had not explored the ways in which interactions across religious difference may influence heterosexual students' perspectives on LGB people. In particular, participation in two or more formal social interfaith activities (e.g., participating in an interfaith dialogue on campus, working together with students of other religious or nonreligious perspectives on a service project), two or more informal social interfaith activities (e.g., dining with someone of a different religious or nonreligious perspective, studying with someone of a different religious or nonreligious perspective), and provocative encounters (e.g., had class discussions that challenged the student to rethink their assumptions about another worldview) with people of diverse worldviews are each associated with higher levels of LGB appreciation for heterosexual students after one year of college.…”

“…Additionally, literature (e.g., Engberg, Hurtado, & Smith, 2007;Finlay & Walther, 2003;Jenkins, Lambert, & Baker, 2009;Olson & DeSouza, 2017) suggests that college students who attend religious services more frequently, as well as those who consider themselves to be more religious, are less accepting of the queer-spectrum community. Currently not known, however, is how engagement across religious diversity may shape those perspectives, a clear gap given research supporting the value of interfaith experiences in fostering students' pluralism orientation (Rockenbach, Mayhew, Morin, Crandall, & Selznick, 2015) and their appreciative attitudes toward other minoritized groups (e.g., Jews and Muslims) (Mayhew, Bowman, Rockenbach, Selznick, & Riggers-Piehl, 2018;Rockenbach, Mayhew, Bowman, Morin, & Riggers-Piehl, 2017). Informed by those studies and other literature showing how one type of diversity exposure (e.g., race) may serve as a catalyst for diversity appreciation in other regards (see Engberg et al, 2007;Mayhew, Rockenbach, Bowman, Seifert, & Wolniak, 2016), we hypothesize that exposure to and engagement with religiously diverse others will positively shape heterosexual collegians' attitudes toward lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.…”

Talking about antisemitism in MPA classrooms and beyond

“…Study (2018) suggests that interventions within higher education institutions can contribute to shifts in attitudes about Jews. Mayhew et al (2018) find that appreciative attitudes toward Jews varied by students' perceptions of structural, psychological, and behavioral climate dimensions related to worldview. The authors also find that educational experiences that invite informal experiences interacting with diverse peers, self-reflection on one's assumptions, and interfaith engagement with students of other beliefs contribute to students' appreciation of Jews.…”

Feeling correct is feeling prejudiced: The differential effects of attitude correctness and attitude clarity on evaluations of outgroups

“…Interestingly, Christians' religious attitude correctness did not show a significant relationship with prejudice toward Jews in Study 1a, but atheists' attitude correctness did show a significant relationship in Study 1b. This may be because Christians have conciliatory attitudes toward Jews due to their historical status as victims (Mayhew et al, 2018). Additionally, Jews are often seen as more similar to Christians than are other religious groups (Lugo et al, 2009), which could attenuate the effects of attitude correctness.…”