Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants

Ratings of Prosocial Personality Traits are Contaminated by Religious Stereotype Bias

Department

Psychology

College

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Date Range

2011-2012

Abstract

Previous work has suggested that religiosity is associated with prosociality based on self- and peer-ratings of the personality traits Agreeableness and Conscientiousness. However, a religious prosociality stereotype exists such that the two domains are presumed to be associated. We investigated whether participants' own religiosity and self-ratings of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness predict personality ratings of targets as a function of the target's religiosity. Participants rated religiously-labeled targets (e.g., Christian, Atheist) on personality adjectives. Participants higher in religiosity attribute greater Agreeableness to religious targets, an effect mediated by stereotypes about the nonreligious and lessened when the perceiver is more agreeable. Ratings of Agreeableness are affected by stereotypes of religious prosociality and religious ingroup bias.

Conference Name

Association for Psychological Science

Conference Location

Chicago Illinois

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