Abstract
Religious priming has been found to have both positive and negative consequences, and recent research suggests that the activation of God-related and community-related religious cognitions may cause outgroup prosociality and outgroup derogation respectively. The present research sought to examine whether reminders of God and religion have different effects on attitudes towards ingroup and outgroup members. Over two studies, little evidence was found for different effects of these two types of religious primes. In study 1, individuals primed with the words “religion”, “God” and a neutral control word evaluated both ingroup and outgroup members similarly, although a marginal tendency towards more negative evaluations of outgroup members by females exposed to religion primes was observed. In study 2, no significant differences in attitudes towards an outgroup member were observed between the God, religion, and neutral priming conditions. Furthermore, the gender effect observed in study 1 did not replicate in this second study. Possible explanations for these null effects are discussed.
Highlights
All major world religions claim jurisdiction over morality; professing that their creed yields righteous behavior that is pleasing to their God, Gods, or conception of The Divine
Given that significant gender differences in religiosity have frequently been observed [55], additional analyses were conducted in order to test for possible gender effects that may have been obscured in the previous ANOVA
In study 1 we investigated the differential effects of supernatural and religious institutional priming on implicit attitudes towards ingroup and outgroup members, as measured using an essay evaluation task
Summary
All major world religions claim jurisdiction over morality; professing that their creed yields righteous behavior that is pleasing to their God, Gods, or conception of The Divine. Christians believe that accepting Jesus Christ gives rise to “fruit of the Spirit”, which encompasses such moral fundamentals as “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” [1]. Similar passages can be found in the holy books of all major faiths, such as the Buddhist Tipitaka [3], the Hindu Vedas, [4], and the Jewish Talmud [5]. Religion is seen by many believers to be a prerequisite for moral behavior. A 2002 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 60% of Americans believe that a religious upbringing gives rise to a morally righteous life, while almost half claim that belief in God is a prerequisite for morality
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