Are the latter-day saints too latter day? Perceived age of the Mormon Church and attitudes toward Mormons

Abstract

Two studies examine how social distance toward Mormons is affected by the relative recency of the Mormon religion. In Study 1, we found that the perceived age of the Mormon religion predicted social distance toward Mormons such that people who perceived Mormonism as more recent wanted more social distance from Mormons. In Study 2, we manipulated the antiquity or recency of the Mormon religion. We found that emphasizing the long history of the religion reduced social distance from Mormons (relative to emphasizing the religion’s newness), an effect that was mediated by perceived legitimacy of the Mormon religion. These findings support past research showing that the longevity of a practice implies its goodness and that this inference extends to practitioners as well.