Improving the Electability of Atheists in the United States: A Preliminary Examination

Abstract

Decades of polling data and recent research have demonstrated the magnitude of anti-atheist prejudice in the United States and its relationship to perceptions of atheists as immoral and untrustworthy. Across three studies, I examine the malleability of bias against atheists in the context of election politics. Informational manipulations of an atheist candidate's stated values (Study 1) and popularity (Study 2) improve participants’ perceptions of the morality and trustworthiness of and likelihood of voting for that atheist candidate, but religiously affiliated participants still prefer a similarly situated Christian candidate. Study 3 shows that participants are more likely to vote for an atheist when the opposing candidate was described as a theocrat. Implications of this research for ameliorating the under-representation of non-religious individuals in government are discussed.

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

“…Additional research notes the reluctance of the U.S. electorate to support candidates who are atheists (Djupe and Calfano 2014). This effect is strongest among Christian voters since they see these candidates as especially untrustworthy (Franks 2017; Franks and Scherr 2014).…”

“…Regarding candidates of a single, marginalized group, we expect Republicans to be less likely to favor a candidate who is gay and religious or who is straight and nonreligious compared to a straight, religious one. Again, this is based on past research that finds Republicans maintain stronger opposition than do Democrats to gay and lesbian, as well as nonreligious, candidates (Doan and Haider‐Markel 2010; Franks 2017; McCarthy 2019).…”

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

“…Design. Participants were divided into groups based on whether they identified as religiously affiliated or religiously unaffiliated in a manner mirroring prior studies on antiatheist prejudice in politics (e.g., Franks, 2017;Franks & Scherr, 2014, 2017 and were randomly assigned to one of three conditions for the EC task: (1) Candidate A with atheist stimuli and Candidate B with Christian stimuli; (2) Candidate B with atheist stimuli and Candidate A with Christian stimuli; and (3) both candidates with neutral stimuli.…”

“…Categorizing individuals into religiously affiliated groups is meaningful (e.g., Weeks & Vincent, 2007) and helps to better appreciate the prejudice atheists experience, given that the strongest levels of prejudice against atheists in the United States have come from the religiously affiliated majority rather from the religiously unaffiliated (e.g., Franks, 2017; Franks & Scherr, 2014, 2017). Consistent with this idea, antiatheist prejudice is lowest in liberalized Western democracies, in which religious affiliation is low (Gervais, 2011).…”

“…For instance, political leaders expressing Christian sentiments gain support among Christian voters, but not among religiously unaffiliated voters (Albertson, 2011). Unlike Christian voters, however, religiously unaffiliated voters do not exhibit prejudice toward atheist politicians (Franks, 2017; Franks & Scherr, 2014, 2017). These results are corroborated by polling data indicating that the willingness of U.S. respondents to vote for a “generally well-qualified” atheist candidate for president was consistently under 50% until it hit 54% in 2012 (Jones, 2012).…”