Religiosity and prejudice revisited: In-group favoritism, out-group derogation, or both?

Abstract

Two studies focused on the relationship between religiosity and intergroup bias. In Study 1, participants completed brief measures of religiosity and spirituality and attitudes toward religiously value-consistent in-groups (Christians, heterosexuals) and value-violating out-groups (atheists, Muslims, and gay men). As predicted, self-reported religiosity and spirituality correlated positively with more negative attitudes toward out-groups relative to in-groups. In Study 2, priming methods were used to examine whether activating cognitive representations of religion would affect intergroup bias. Individuals subliminally primed with religious words showed significantly larger increases in negative attitudes toward value-violating out-groups relative to attitudes toward in-groups than those primed with neutral words. This change in relative attitudes was due to simultaneous increases in in-group favoritism and out-group derogation. These effects remained when statistically controlling for self-reported religiosity and spirituality and preexisting attitudes toward these groups. Furthermore, there were no interaction effects between religious primes and self-reported levels of religiosity, indicating that the religion primes drove the effects. Results are discussed in light of religious priming and its association with increases in attitudes relevant to the social group component of religion.

Analytic Thinking, Religion, and Prejudice: An Experimental Test of the Dual-Process Model of Mind

“…In general, in-group cooperation among religious people might also lead to between-group competition, which in turn leads to out-group conflict and hostility ; see also Norenzayan, 2013). In parallel with this account, when people were primed with religious words, they showed greater in-group cooperation (Preston & Ritter, 2013) and increased level of negative attitudes toward value-violating out-groups (Johnson, Rowatt, & LaBouff, 2012). Thus, prejudice has a central role for religious groups in protecting their communities (see also Ramsay, Pang, Shen, & Rowatt 2014).…”

“…To fulfill this function, people view their group and its members as positively as possible in comparison to out-groups. Correspondingly, favoring one's in-group leads to in-group favoritism but also an out-group conflict (see Norenzayan, 2013), as well as activation of general social stereotypes (see Johnson et al, 2012). Thus, priming participants with Muslim religious concepts can lead to prejudice due to simply in-group favoritism.…”

Attachment theory and religious violence: theorizing adult religious psychopathology

“…There is a need to pay close attention to the internal conflicts, sustained attachment injuries, psychopathology, and attachment needs of the perpetrators carrying out the acts of violence to better understand how defensive responses against an opposing group can be by-products of how the human brain processes perceived threats, emotions, and worldview defense (cf. Johnson et al 2012). Most importantly, there is also a lot to benefit from examining the nature of this defensive attachment that has now been proposed and how it aligns with other broader perspectives of religious violence theory.…”

The Relation Among Intrinsic Religiosity, Religious Fundamentalism and Attitudes Toward Out-Groups in Muslims From Bosnia and Herzegovina

“…"Your feelings toward Bosniaks are"; 0 = very cold, 10 = very warm). In order to assess the attitudes toward different out-groups, we calculated the scores of affective distance (for a similar method, see Cottrell & Neuberg, 2005;Johnson, Rowatt, & LaBouff, 2012) by subtracting the thermometer item rating of the in-group (i.e. Bosniaks) from the thermometer item ratings of out-group (e.g.…”