Even though religions preach love of humanity, decades of psychological research have linked religiousness with prejudice. In recent times, certain types of prejudice, particularly racism, have become socially unacceptable and are nowadays condemned by religious leaders. However, religious prejudice against homosexuals and against atheists is still tolerated and even encouraged by mainstream religious groups. Atheists in particular appear to be one of the most vilified minority groups in America today. Some researchers have argued that how dogmatically people hold their beliefs is more important to religious prejudice than the actual content of their beliefs. However, a recent study suggests that when it comes to prejudice against gays and atheists, the content of the belief – specifically belief in God – is as important, perhaps even more important, than how dogmatically a person holds those beliefs.
Biblically based morality leaves something to be desired from a humanitarian standpoint
Different kinds of religiosity and prejudice
The relationship between religiosity and various kinds of
prejudice has been noted for a long time. For example, studies from the 1950s
found that church-goers were more likely to hold racist views than people who
never attend church. Religiosity is a complex concept and so researchers have
attempted to understand which particular features of religiousness are
particularly relevant to prejudice. Gordon Allport, for example, proposed that
people can have either intrinsic or extrinsic motives for religious
behaviour. Extrinsic motives are ones where religion is seen as a means to
another end (e.g. attending church for social reasons) whereas people with
intrinsic motives see religion as an end in itself, and therefore the central
guiding principle in their lives. Allport was of the view that extrinsic
religiosity was associated with the negative features of religion, such as
prejudice, whilst intrinsic religiosity was a more “mature” approach,
associated with the best qualities of religion. Allport even claimed that
intrinsically religious people have “no place for rejection, contempt, or condescension” toward others (Hall, Matz, & Wood, 2010). However, while
research has shown that extrinsic religiosity is positively associated with
racism, intrinsic religiosity is largely uncorrelated with racism, suggesting
that intrinsically religious people are little different from people who are
not religious with regard to racial prejudice. Additionally, there is evidence
that people’s ratings of intrinsic religiosity are affected by socially
desirable responding, so that intrinsically religious people may be more
concerned with the appearance of being virtuous, rather than the reality.
Fundamentalism strongly predicts prejudice
An alternative approach has been to consider how
dogmatically a person holds their religious beliefs. Dogmatism may be
considered a sign of cognitive inflexibility, and people who are inflexible in
their thinking may be more likely to hold stereotyped views of minority groups that
promote prejudice. In support of this, a number of studies have linked
religious fundamentalism in people of many different religions – including
Hindus, Muslims, and Jews, as well as Christians – with increased anti-gay
prejudice (Hunsberger, 1995). Holding
absolutist beliefs that forbid one to question dogma and that regard the world
as divided into good and evil tends to be conducive to prejudice. In contrast,
religious people who value willingness to question one’s beliefs, who
acknowledge that other beliefs might also contain truth, and who are
non-authoritarian, tend to be less prejudiced, although not less so than
non-religious people (Hunsberger, 1995).
The How and the What of Religious Belief
Findings linking dogmatism to prejudice across a number of
religions have led some researchers to conclude that the how of belief – the cognitive rigidity or flexibility of one’s
beliefs – is more important to understanding prejudice than the what of belief – the actual content of
one’s belief. However, the authors of a recent paper have argued that most
studies on the subject have confounded the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ rather than
measuring them separately. Specifically, the authors argue that how strongly
one believes in God or a higher power (the what
component of belief) can contribute to prejudice independently of the rigidity
of one’s beliefs (the how component) (Shen, Yelderman, Haggard, & Rowatt, 2013).
Belief in God may be relevant to specific prejudice against people who are seen
to violate one’s values. Specifically, gay people and atheists are perceived by
many religious people as being in violation of religious values.
The authors used a measure called the Post
Critical Beliefs Scale (PCBS) to disentangle the respective effects of
cognitive rigidity and belief in God on prejudice. The PCBS assesses religious
belief based on two broad dimensions: whether one takes a literal or symbolic
approach, which is thought to assess rigidity/flexibility of belief; and
inclusion/exclusion of transcendence, which assesses belief in the existence of
God or a higher power. Prejudice was measured with a measure of comfort with
social proximity to the target groups. That is, people who express greater
discomfort being around members of particular groups are considered to be more
prejudiced against them.
Belief in God and Prejudice against “Value-Violators”
The results of two studies showed that belief in God
significantly predicted prejudice against both gays and atheists respectively
even when taking into account the level of cognitive rigidity (literal-symbolic
belief). Belief in God was actually more strongly related to prejudice against
atheists than against gay people.[1]
In contrast, cognitive rigidity was associated with greater prejudice against
black people, but belief in God was not. Furthermore, the second study by Shen
et al. found that intrinsic religiosity, religious behaviour (service
attendance, reading sacred texts, and prayer), and general religiosity
(self-rating of how religious one is) were also associated quite substantially
with prejudice against gays and atheists, but not with prejudice against
blacks. This is contrary to Allport’s claim that intrinsically religious people
have no place for rejection or contempt of their fellow man. The results of
this study indicate that people who believe strongly in God and regard their
religion as very important are very uncomfortable around gays and atheists, but
especially the latter.
Religion can also promote in-group loyalty at the expense of those who don't share the same beliefs
The authors of this
study concluded that the two components of religiousness they studied –
cognitive rigidity and belief in God – each tend to contribute to specific prejudices.
Cognitive rigidity appears to be more strongly related to racial prejudice,
whereas belief in God appears to be related more particularly to
“value-violating” prejudice, specifically against gays and atheists. It is also
worth noting that modern religious leaders tend to condemn racial prejudice,
but are more often tolerant of, or even encourage, prejudice against gays and
atheists (Whitley, 2009).
Some Limitations of the Study and Future Directions
While I think the findings of Shen et al. are quite
interesting, their methodology may have had certain limitations. The sole
measure of prejudice used was based on social distance. While this is useful,
it would also have been informative to examine how more specific prejudicial
and stereotyped beliefs about gays and atheists (e.g. “atheists have no moral
values,” “gays corrupt children”) might be related to belief in God and
cognitive rigidity respectively. I also have some reservations about the
“literal-symbolic” dimension of the PCBS as a measure of cognitive-rigidity. In
particular, people who reject religious faith altogether and people with very
literal orthodox religious beliefs are both classified as being cognitively
rigid because they do not accept a “symbolic” interpretation of religion belief.
This seems to treat atheism as an alternative form of dogmatism, which is
questionable. Just because one rejects religious faith does not necessarily
imply that one is dogmatic in the sense of being unable to consider the
possibility that one might be mistaken. (Although for an examination of dogmatism in atheists see this article here.) Use of a content-free measure of
dogmatism would provide a clearer understanding of the role of cognitive
rigidity.
Finally, this study looked at whether belief in God in
general is related to prejudice. This is certainly important to know. However,
future studies might examine whether more specific beliefs about what God is
like provide more accurate predictions of prejudice than just belief in God
generally. For example, belief in a morally judgmental god who rejects people
deemed to be “immoral” might be a stronger predictor of prejudice compared to
belief in a warm fuzzy deity who accepts everyone.
I would also like to acknowledge that, in line with most
statistical trends in psychology, there are exceptions to the general findings
presented here. There are religious people who are accepting of gay people and
of people who do not share their belief in a higher power, even if they do
appear to be in the minority.
[1] For the statistically-minded, the difference between correlations was significant in both studies.
© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without
permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original
article is provided.
This article also appears on Psychology Today on
my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.
Related Reading
Why are Atheists so Disliked? Epiphenomenon blog
Other posts about the psychology of religion and/or spirituality
References
Hall, D. L., Matz, D. C., & Wood, W. (2010). Why
Don’t We Practice What We Preach? A Meta-Analytic Review of Religious Racism. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14(1),
126-139. doi: 10.1177/1088868309352179
Hunsberger, B. (1995). Religion and Prejudice: The
Role of Religious Fundamentalism, Quest, and Right-Wing Authoritarianism. Journal of Social Issues, 51(2),
113-129. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01326.x
Shen, M. J., Yelderman, L. A., Haggard, M. C., & Rowatt, W. C. (2013). Disentangling the belief in God and cognitive rigidity/flexibility components of religiosity to predict racial and value-violating prejudice: A Post-Critical Belief Scale analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 54 (3), 389-395 DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2012.10.008
Whitley, B. E. (2009).
Religiosity and Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men: A Meta-Analysis. International Journal for the Psychology of
Religion, 19(1), 21-38. doi: 10.1080/10508610802471104
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