How Religiousness Increases and Decreases Prejudice: The Mediating Roles of Religious Fundamentalism and Religious Ethnocentrism

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ABSTRACT We hypothesized that while both religious commitment and quest orientation directly reduce prejudice, their overall influence would largely depend on their indirect effects through two serial mediators: religious fundamentalism and religious ethnocentrism. Our study (N = 429) examined six different forms of prejudice (toward Muslims, Jews, Blacks, atheists, homosexuals, the poor). Serial mediation path analyses confirmed that (a) religious fundamentalism and religious ethnocentrism mediate the connection between religious commitment and prejudice and between quest orientation and prejudice, and (b) religious ethnocentrism mediates the connection between religious fundamentalism and prejudice. For all six forms of prejudice, religious ethnocentrism was the stronger predictor of prejudice. Consistently, religious commitment directly decreased prejudice but indirectly increased prejudice through heightened levels of religious fundamentalism, and in turn, heightened levels of religious ethnocentrism. The implications of these findings, and the importance of studying factors that moderate the direct and indirect influences of religiousness, are discussed.