RESEARCH: Christian Orthodoxy, Religious Fundamentalism, and Right-Wing Authoritarianism as Predictors of Implicit Racial Prejudice

Abstract

This study examined associations between some dimensions of religiosity and implicit racial prejudice. Implicit racial prejudice was measured with S. D. Farnham's (1998) Implicit Association Test (IAT), a software program that records reaction time as participants categorize names (of Blacks and Whites) and adjectives (pleasant or unpleasant). Participants also completed self-report measures of religious fundamentalism, Christian orthodoxy, religious orientations (i.e., intrinsic, extrinsic, quest), right-wing authoritarianism, and social desirability. White college students took significantly longer to categorize names and adjectives in one IAT condition (White-unpleasant, Black-pleasant) than in a second IAT condition (White-pleasant, Black-unpleasant), the race-IAT effect. A multiple regression analysis revealed that right-wing authoritarianism was positively associated with the race-IAT effect (β = .31), Christian orthodoxy was negatively related (β = -.26), and religious fundamentalism (β = .02) and social desirability (β = .08) were less related to this measure of implicit racial prejudice. Intrinsic, extrinsic, and quest religious orientations did not account for unique variation in implicit racial prejudice. Implications of these findings for reducing prejudice are discussed.