Religiosity and Prejudice Revisited: In-Group Favoritism, Out-Group Derogation, or Both?

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.