Godless by association: Deficits in trust mediate antiatheist stigma-by-association.

Abstract

In the United States, atheists elicit high levels of sociopolitical rejection that is primarily motivated by a lack of trust. Across three studies, we use evaluative conditioning (EC) as a theoretical framework to evaluate whether these deficits extended to candidates who are not atheists themselves but merely perceived to be associated with atheism. Study 1 found that implicit trust, explicit trust, and voting intentions toward target candidates were all negatively impacted by an EC procedure that paired a candidate's face with words related to atheism. Study 2 found that trust and political support for a Christian candidate was eroded when he expressed proatheist public policy position. In both experiments, trust mediated the effects of atheist associations on voting intentions for religiously affiliated participants. Study 3 found the same moderated-mediation pattern. Religiously affiliated participants who perceived Barack Obama as being more favorable toward atheists were less likely to vote for him, in large part due to a lack of trust. (PsycINFO Database Record

(Non)Religious Coping with a Natural Disaster in a Rural U.S. Community

“…Larger scale projects in the future should attempt to recruit participants with more diverse (non)religiousness. In addition, future research may address how stigmatization and distrust of non-religious individuals (e.g., Franks et al, 2019;Gervais et al, 2011) affects their ability to use effective coping strategies in times of crisis. These stigmas may be especially salient during catastrophic events since existential threat has been shown to increase anti-atheist prejudice (Cook et al, 2015).…”

How Do Religion and Sexual Orientation Affect Support for U.S. Presidential Candidates? Evidence from a Survey Experiment

“…Atheist candidates receive substantially less support from potential voters relative to their religious counterparts (Edgell et al. 2016; Edgell, Gerteis, and Hartmann 2006; Franks, Scherr, and Gibson 2019; Jones 2012). Moreover, religiosity plays a substantial role in explaining variation in electoral support for gay and lesbian candidates.…”

Religious identity and intersectional privilege: (A)symmetric biases in Christians and atheists are unaffected by prompts to consider religious and racial privilege.

“…In a series of experiments, atheists were likewise shown to suffer from a distinct deficit in trust from religious believers, and in one study were distrusted to a similar extent as rapists (Gervais et al, 2011). These biases are strong enough to elicit a “stigma-by-association” effect for those who are not atheists themselves but are merely perceived as associated with atheists/atheism (Franks et al, 2019).…”