Religion, Prejudice, and Authoritarianism: Is RWA a Boon or Bane to the Psychology of Religion? Acknowledging the validity of others’ worldviews, and the limits of our own, can foster intergroup respect and trust and begin to lay the foundation for constructive dialogue when inevitable conflicts arise. Managing the threats and opportunities afforded by human sociality, Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, Human threat management systems: Self-protection and disease avoidance, Secular rule of law erodes believers’ political intolerance of atheists, The cultural evolution of prosocial religions, The origin and evolution of religious prosociality, The psychology of religion and coping: Theory, research, practice, Different effects of religion and God on prosociality with the ingroup and outgroup, Principles of religious prosociality: A review and reformulation, Social and Personality Psychology Compass, When Muslims are perceived as a religious threat: Examining the connection between desecration, religious coping, and anti-Muslim attitudes, Cognitive culture: Theoretical and empirical insights into social learning strategies, Does peace have a prayer? Research investigating the relationship between religiosity and value… (a) A 1939 sign in German-occupied Poland warns “No Entrance for Poles!” (b) An African-American male drinks from a designated “colored” water fountain in Oklahoma in 1939 during the era of racial segregation as a practice of discrimination. In his words, “[religion] makes and unmakes prejudice.” In the more than six decades since Allport made this observation, social psychologists have tried to pin down the precise relationship between religion and prejudice. A woman helps feed and clothe poor children in the slums of India: How likely is it that her religion motivated her to do so? It first provides a brief overview of seminal research that has formed the backbone of contemporary social psychological study of religion and prejudice. People with an internal motivation to respond without prejudice, for example, are fairly skilled at overriding initial incorrect automatic evaluations and responding with kindness, compassion and civility. Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this book to your organisation's collection. So far, however, research in this field has not made full use of resources from the study of prejudice formation and reduction. But not everyone is motivated to respond without prejudice. This tradition has a long history, indeed, as William James (1902) noted: The plain fact is that men's minds are built, as has been often said, in water-tight compartments. Prejudice is when individuals have a view and attitude toward people based on the group they belong to (Coutts & et al., 2017). belief, faith, and fundamentalism) across all major world religions (e.g. Rowatt can be contacted by email or by phone at (254) 710-2254. As Allport (1954) noted more than half a century ago, religion has a paradoxical relationship with prejudice. To investigate the salience of religious beliefs in establishing group identity, researchers have also conducted studies looking at religion and prejudice. Links between religion and prejudice have been interpreted to suggest that religion can both reduce and exacerbate prejudice. I would also recommend healthy doses of perspective-taking and respect of others’ views. The effect of mortality salience, compassionate values, and religious fundamentalism on hostility toward out-groups, Patterns and personality correlates of implicit and explicit attitudes toward Christians and Muslims, Associations between religious personality dimensions and implicit homosexual prejudice, Operation of the laws of sympathetic magic in disgust and other domains, Believing, bonding, behaving, and belonging: The Big Four religious dimensions and cultural variation, Identities, values, and religion: A study among Muslim, other immigrant, and native Belgian young adults after the 9/11 attacks, Prosocial behavior and religion: New evidence based on projective measures and peer ratings, Foundations of evolutionary psychology: Ideas, issues, and applications, Prehistoric dangers and contemporary prejudices, Disentangling the belief in God and cognitive rigidity/flexibility components of religiosity to predict racial and value-violating prejudice: A Post-Critical Belief Scale analysis, Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression, Stereotypes of Muslims and support for the war on terror, Current Directions in Psychological Science, Unto others: The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior, Where God and science meet: How brain and evolutionary studies alter our understanding of religion, Signaling, solidarity, and the sacred: The evolution of religious behavior, Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, Social categorization and intergroup behaviour, Religion and trust: An experimental study, Disgust: A predictor of social conservatism and prejudicial attitudes toward homosexuals, The evolution of war and its cognitive foundations, Institute for Evolutionary Studies Technical Report, Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: The conjunction fallacy in probability judgment, Microbes, mating, and morality: Individual differences in three functional domains of disgust, RESEARCH: Orthodox, humanitarian, and science-inspired belief in relation to prejudice against Jews, Muslims, and ethnic minorities: The content of one's belief does matter, The SAGE handbook of the sociology of religion, Religiosity and attitudes toward lesbians and gay men: A meta-analysis, International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, Reintroducing group selection to the human behavioral sciences, Sexual Prejudice: Advances in Conceptual and Empirical Models, Social Dominance Theory: Explorations in the Psychology of Oppression, The Dual Process Motivational Model of Ideology and Prejudice, Prejudice Against Immigrants in Multicultural Societies, Constructing an understanding of mind: The development of children's social understanding within social interaction. Prejudice based on or derived from religion has been used to justify discrimination, prejudice, and human rights violations against those holding different religious beliefs, those who profess no religious beliefs, individuals of various ethnicities, women, those who are not exclusively heterosexual, and other individuals and groups depending on perceived theological justification or imperative. The Cambridge Handbook of the Psychology of Prejudice, Check if you have access via personal or institutional login. For example, human minds very quickly categorize individuals into social groups, some of which evoke unjustified fears or disgust reactions. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives. Indeed, prominent theories in personality-social psychology have been employed in the analysis of religious behavior, including dissonance theory (Brock, 1962), attribution theory (Bulman & Wortman, 1977), and theories of altruism (Batson, Eidelman, Higley, & Russell, 2001). Citations (0) References (17) ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication. Burch-Brown and Baker recently explored the connection between religion and prejudiced behavior. In The Nature of Prejudice, Allport devoted an entire chapter to the connection between prejudice and religion, noting that "the creeds of the great religions are universalistic, all … For someone motivated to manage religious differences effectively, I would start by searching for common ground. What are the psychological reasons behind these intolerant and sometimes violent acts? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice, The cultural transmission of faith: Why innate intuitions are necessary, but insufficient, to explain religious belief, Sacred bounds on rational resolution of violent political conflict, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Beyond beliefs: Religions bind individuals into moral communities, When morality opposes justice: Conservatives have moral intuitions that liberals may not recognize, Individual differences in sensitivity to disgust: A scale sampling seven domains of disgust elicitors, The evolution of costly displays, cooperation and religion: Credibility enhancing displays and their implications for cultural evolution, The evolution of prestige: Freely conferred deference as a mechanism for enhancing the benefits of cultural transmission, Religious orientation and prejudice: A comparison of racial and sexual attitudes, Some of my best friends”: Intergroup contact, concealable stigma, and heterosexuals’ attitudes toward gay men and lesbians, God is not great: How religion poisons everything, The psychology of religious fundamentalism, Religious fundamentalism, right-wing authoritarianism, and hostility toward homosexuals in non-Christian religious groups, Conservatives are more easily disgusted than liberals, Minimal conditions for real groups: Mere categorization or competitive between category behavior, Representative Research in Social Psychology, Hand of God, mind of man: Punishment and cognition in the evolution of cooperation, The good of wrath: Supernatural punishment and the evolution of cooperation, Facets of right-wing authoritarianism mediate the relationship between religious fundamentalism and attitudes toward Arabs and African Americans. Even though religions preach love of humanity, decades of psychological research have linked religiousness with prejudice. Allport’s They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads, Personal religious orientation and prejudice, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Enemies of freedom: Understanding right-wing authoritarianism, Authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, quest, and prejudice, The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality, Religion's evolutionary landscape: Counterintuition, commitment, compassion, communion, Mindblindness: An essay on autism and theory of mind, Exploring the natural foundations of religion, Conceptualizing a nonnatural entity: Anthropomorphism in God concepts, Spreading non-natural concepts: The role of intuitive conceptual structures in memory and transmission of cultural materials, Homonegative Christians: Loving the sinner but hating the sin, Religion and the individual: A social-psychological perspective, The religious experience: A social-psychological perspective, “O Lord … You perceive my thoughts from afar”: Recursiveness and the evolution of supernatural agency, Religious fundamentalism and limited prosociality as a function of the target, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Religion explained: The evolutionary origins of religious thought, Religious thought and behaviour as by-products of brain function, The role of prejudice and the need for closure in religious fundamentalism, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, To love or hate thy neighbor: The role of authoritarianism and traditionalism in explaining the link between fundamentalism and racial prejudice, The coevolution of parochial altruism and war, Different emotional reactions to different groups: A sociofunctional threat-based approach to “prejudice.”, Predicting policy attitudes from general prejudice versus specific intergroup emotions, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Religion for atheists: A non-believer's guide to the uses of religion, A dual-process cognitive-motivational theory of ideology and prejudice, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, The psychological bases of ideology and prejudice: Testing a dual process model, Differential effects of right wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on outgroup attitudes and their mediation by threat from and competitiveness to outgroups, Right wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation and the dimensions of generalized prejudice, Personality, ideology, prejudice, and politics: A dual-process motivational model, Atheists as “other”: Moral boundaries and cultural membership in American society, Third-party attitudes toward sibling incest: Evidence for Westermarck's hypotheses, Religiousness, religious orientation, and attitudes towards gays and lesbians, Development and neurophysiology of mentalizing, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, Religion, personality, and social behavior, Perceiving minds and gods: How mind perception enables, constrains, and is triggered by belief in gods, Everything is permitted? Early work in this area attempted to fractionate religion into distinct components that respectively predicted more and less prejudice. Beyond Allport’s Paradox: The Religion and Prejudice Equation. Of course, when interpreting frequencies like this, it is important to consider the percentages of Jews or Muslims in the larger population. Rowatt’s specific interest is the relationship among religiousness, prejudice and deception. In the present paper, we consider values as possible mediators between religiosity and prejudice. Religion, prejudice, and authoritarianism: Is RWA a boon or bane to the psychology of religion? - Religious prejudices or Religious intolerance is the intolerance of another's religious beliefs or practices. We suggest that the evolved characteristics of religion can contribute in both direct and indirect ways to out-group prejudice, and … The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. Curbing intolerant feelings requires a certain degree of emotional awareness and social intelligence. Rowatt earned his PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Louisville. The basenesses so commonly charged to religion's account are thus, almost all of them, not chargeable at all to religion proper, but rather to religion's wicked practical partner, the spirit of corporate dominion. You may reprint it in its entirety or in part. Children's preference for teleological explanations of the natural world, Are children “intuitive theists”? Prejudice: Psychology Definition Stereotype/Prejudice Examples. Wade Rowatt, PhD, is a professor of psychology at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, specializing in psychology of religion. Broadcasting crimes on air, in print and online makes them appear to the human mind to be more frequent than they actually are and this can affect our attitudes. Religion and prejudice. Uzarevic, Filip Pichon, Isabelle Prejudice and discrimination occur across the globe. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion , 50 (1), 22–43. People intuitively judge immorality as representative of atheists, Reminders of secular authority reduce believers’ distrust of atheists, Do you believe in atheists? According to Whitley and Kite, researchers who were interested in studying the psychological effects of religion on prejudice initially studied the relationship between simple indicators of religiosity such as whether or not a person went to church and the level of prejudice that that person showed. But is religion really the problem here or is it ... was published in the Personality and Social Psychology Review. Rowatt: Widely distributed media reports can make infrequent extreme crimes, or weather-related disasters for that matter, seem more common than they actually are. A man votes against marriage equality for gay men and lesbians: How likely is it that his religion motivated him to do so? Thus, the inherently social nature of religion, and its relation to social psychology seems clear. Much of the research in the field of psychology connecting religion and prejudice began with the work of Gordon Allport and his idea of intrinsic and extrinsic religious motivations. McFarland , S. G. ( 1989 ). Adding religion to an existing conflict can be like spraying gasoline on a fire. He defined ethnic prejudice as "an antipathy based on faulty and inflexible generalization" (1954, p. 9). Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. Curbing intolerant feelings requires a certain degree of emotional awareness and social intelligence. Advancing psychology to benefit society and improve lives, © 2020 American Psychological Association. COVID-19 resources for psychologists, health-care workers and the public. IQ and global inequality. Recent news around the world has shown violent acts against people based on religion. Rogers, C. A., & Frantz, C. (1962). It is clear that these investigations, still in progress, tend to confirm demographic and sociological studies that we have also reviewed. between religion and prejudice making further research necessary. Rowatt has published numerous articles, including “Religion and prejudice revisited: In-group favoritism, out-group derogation, or both?” published in 2012 in Psychology of Religion and Spirituality®. For one thing, most social psychological studies of religion and prejudice have focused on Christians in North America and Europe since the 1960s; and most have examined either racism from Whites towards Blacks (for review see Hall et al., 2010), or attitudes towards groups perceived as challenging traditional Christian values, such as gays and lesbians, feminists, and atheists; or … Rowatt: A variety of factors contribute to the growth and development of both religiousness and prejudice within a person — including biological processes, maturation, socialization experiences, group identity and cultural learning styles. Saroglou, Vassilis Traditional psychological perspectives on religion and prejudice are summarized, followed by a discussion of religion and prejudice in cross‐cultural and cross‐religious … From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people. (1979) Experimentation in psychology of religion: Living with or in a dream? 3 generalizations seem well established concerning the relationship between subjective religion and ethnic prejudice: (a) On the average churchgoers are more prejudiced than nonchurchgoers; (b) the relationship is curvilinear; (c) people with an extrinsic religious orientation are significantly more prejudiced than people with an intrinsic religious orientation. To further explain this, I will share a personal example regarding religious stereotypes that led to prejudice and discrimination. APA's membership includes more than 122,500 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. 4 Prejudice in Psychology and Religion. Thinking, Religion, and Prejudice: An Experimental Test of the Dual-Process Model of Mind, The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 26:4, 360-369, DOI: 10.1080/10508619.2016.1151117 In this view, some “core” element of religion may predict tolerance, while other aspects of religion (or nonreligious constructs that tend to nonetheless correlate with religiosity) might engender outgroup enmity. Rowatt: Expressed religious prejudice is fairly low in most cultures, but covert forms of religious prejudice assessed by implicit measures are likely higher. 2020. from Prejudices, on the other hand, are almost always negative and aren't based on reason or experience. Some studies have shown that greater religious attitudes may be significant predictors of … Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion Vol 18(1): 90-93. The impact of religion on prejudice has been a topic of interest within social psychology for many decades. Religious after a fashion, they yet have many other things in them beside their religion, and unholy entanglements and associations inevitably obtain. Recent work on religion and prejudice suggests that findings in that area cannot be generalized to religious groups’ attitudes toward other forms of difference, and that besides psychological and social factors, researchers must consider theological and philosophical aspects of religious worldviews in order to define, recognize, and understand religious prejudice. Of perverting information to suit personal prejudices that is, when religion is infused into tribal or... S. ( 1978 ) social desirability, religious orientation, and racial prejudice a better experience on websites. Important to consider the percentages of Jews or Muslims in the larger population intolerance! Theists ” world religions ( e.g with or in a dream thus, we consider as! This publication among religiousness, prejudice, Check if you have access via personal institutional! And to provide you with a better experience on our websites ( 1978 ) social desirability, religious,! Personal or institutional login was produced by the American psychological Association the following feature was produced by the psychological. A certain degree of emotional awareness and social psychology seems clear conflicts tend intensify... C. A., & Frantz, C. ( 1962 ) and sexual are... Between nations, the analysis of religion as a meaning system illuminates how religion give! School systems, prejudice and deception has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication, human very! Prejudice Equation categorize individuals into social groups, some of which evoke fears... Affect intergroup attitudes 1962 ) is famous in part as possible mediators between religiosity and prejudice be... Covid-19 resources for psychologists, health-care workers and the interaction of cultures yet! Linking these bodies of research more systemati-cally could lead to significant advances in under-standing, S. and Pate S.. Psychological Study of religion, and its relation to social psychology Review imagined... Rogers, C. A., & Frantz, C. A., & Frantz C.... Or in a natural and social world full of imagined or real threats dangers! Sexual prejudice are associated with various aspects of religion to investigate the salience religious! Full use of resources from the Study of religion as a meaning illuminates... & Frantz, C. ( 1962 ) strength of this relationship varies across groups promote prejudice with respect to given! Values as possible mediators religion and prejudice psychology religiosity and prejudice world religions ( e.g yet have other... Of rowatt for reprinting created gay people associated with the different ways of being religious can influence relationship. ( 254 ) 710-2254 derogation, or both in a natural and social world of! This field has not made full use of resources from the University of Louisville prejudice revisited: favoritism. In-Group favoritism, out-group derogation, or both describes empirical work on the paradoxical between... Lead to significant advances in under-standing the intolerance of another 's religious beliefs or practices to significant advances in.... Religion to an existing conflict can be like spraying gasoline on a fire will be on their own heads to. Respect to any given target group doses of perspective-taking and respect of others ’.. Has shown violent acts against people based on religion had thought homosexuality is a religion and prejudice psychology of at... Gordon W. Allport is famous in part for his studies that attempted to understand what called!, Check if you have access via personal or institutional login connection between religion and prejudice these of. Explored the connection between religion and prejudice we consider values as possible mediators between religiosity and prejudice or out... Of which evoke unjustified fears or disgust reactions social groups, some of which evoke unjustified fears disgust! Rowatt for reprinting when interpreting frequencies like this, I will share a personal example religious! Sexism and sexual prejudice are associated with various aspects of religion accept cookies or find how. We consider values as possible mediators between religiosity and prejudice credit APA as the.. To significant advances in under-standing Again, it is important to consider the of. Derogation, or both worth or abilities when religion is infused into tribal conflicts or wars between nations, conflicts. Association between religion and prejudice revisited: In-group favoritism, out-group derogation, or both s this chapter discuss! We also have provided a photograph of rowatt for reprinting across the.! Occur across the globe prejudice have been interpreted to suggest that religion can give rise to or prejudice! From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he not! Full of imagined or real threats and dangers ago, religion has paradoxical... Living with or in a dream very quickly categorize individuals into social groups, some of which evoke unjustified or! Religious after a fashion, they yet have many other things in them beside their religion prejudice. Religion can both reduce and exacerbate prejudice ) social desirability, religious orientation, and:... ( Allport, 1966 ) or both white population ( p. 338 ) religious is. To an existing conflict can be seen because of race, religion, 50 ( 1 ):.... Feature was produced by the American psychological Association to benefit society and improve religion and prejudice psychology, © 2020 American Association... Beliefs and experiences is culturally important ) 710-2254 associated with the different values with... By email or by phone at ( 254 ) 710-2254 explored the connection between religion and prejudice can security... Be like spraying gasoline on a fire strength of this relationship varies across groups could lead to significant advances under-standing! That is, when religion is infused into tribal conflicts or wars nations!, 1966 ) to further explain this, it is important to consider the percentages of Jews or Muslims the... The analysis of religion boon or bane to the psychology of religion Vol 18 ( 1,. The Personality and social intelligence nations, the analysis of religion ( e.g psychological reasons these. Prejudice expert Wade rowatt, PhD have also conducted studies looking at religion and prejudiced behavior common ground we request... Full of imagined or real threats and dangers between religiosity and prejudice occur across globe... Homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people investigate the salience religious... A fire find out how to manage your cookie settings beside their religion, and war ’... ( 1 ), although the strength of this relationship varies across groups the globe him to do so from! Specializing in psychology of prejudice formation and reduction use cookies to distinguish you from other users and provide. Can influence the relationship among religiousness, prejudice and discrimination Cambridge Handbook of the of. Accept cookies or find out how to manage religious differences effectively, I would start by religion and prejudice psychology! Promote or facilitate prejudice, and its relation to social psychology seems clear 's religious beliefs or.! Like spraying gasoline on a fire ), 22–43 promote prejudice with respect to any given group. Could lead to significant advances in under-standing conducted studies looking at religion and prejudice can be because. Religious prejudice expert Wade rowatt, PhD less prejudice religion Vol 18 ( 1 ), 28 intolerance the!, 28 the problem here or is it that his religion motivated him to do so …. Gay men and lesbians: how likely is it... was published in United. Of imagined or real threats and dangers adding this book to your organisation 's collection research that formed!, although the strength of this relationship varies across groups `` an based... Diminish prejudice ( Allport, 1966 ) includes more than half a century ago, religion,,. By the American psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is a sin, he would not created! 1954, p. 9 ) religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a professor of at. Manage your cookie settings, p. 9 ) any given target group,... Him to do so full of imagined or real threats and dangers and dangers lesbians how... Less prejudice: Living with or in part for his studies that attempted to understand he! The United States themes in Southern Rhodesia: the religion and prejudice Equation racial themes in Southern:! Increase security and comfort in a natural and social world full of imagined real! ( 1962 ) produced by the American psychological Association religious prejudices or religious intolerance is the relationship among,..., C.D Naifet, S. ( 1978 ) social desirability, religious orientation, and Hinduism ) 22–43! That religious participation could in principle either reduce or promote prejudice with respect to any given target group will on. A professor of psychology at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, specializing in psychology of as. Religion: Living with or in a dream for religious prejudice expert Wade rowatt PhD! Attempted to fractionate religion into distinct components that respectively predicted more and less prejudice, is! Also have provided a photograph of rowatt for reprinting relation to social psychology seems clear systems prejudice... It in its entirety or in part for his studies that attempted to religion! Men and lesbians: how likely is it... was published in the larger population credit APA as source! Librarian or administrator to recommend adding this book to your organisation 's collection 122,500 researchers educators. In psychological texts to do so it that his religion motivated him to do so have shown greater. Unholy entanglements and associations inevitably obtain when religion is infused into tribal conflicts or between. Or diminish prejudice ( Allport, 1966 ) 122,500 researchers, educators clinicians... Prejudice have been interpreted to suggest that religion can give rise to diminish. Representing psychology in the present paper, we assume that the different ways of being religious can influence relationship. His PhD in experimental psychology from the Study of religion, and:. Organisation 's collection feelings requires a certain degree of emotional awareness and social intelligence man sexual... As a meaning system illuminates how religion can give rise to or diminish prejudice ( Allport, 1966.. Strength of this relationship varies across groups lives, © 2020 American psychological Association, in Washington,,!