Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants
Unpacking Religious Prosociality: Personality Ratings are Influenced by Religious Stereotype and Group Identity Bias
Department
Psychology Department
College
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Date Range
2013-2014
Disciplines
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
A religious prosociality stereotype exists such that religiosity and prosociality are presumed to be positively associated. However, studies using self- and peer-ratings of agreeableness and conscientiousness have not simultaneously controlled for the religiosity of the participant and the target. One-hundred sixty students completed measures of religiosity in a prescreening survey. Later, participants rated an array of targets (Christian vs. atheist) on adjectives corresponding to agreeableness and conscientiousness. Regardless of participants level of religiosity, atheist targets were rated as being lower in agreeableness and conscientiousness relative to those labeled as Christians. This bias was greater for highly religious participants. This effect is mediated by perceptions of morality for the nonreligious independent of participants attitudes broader attitudes concerning the targets religious group. Implications are discussed.
Conference Name
The 15th Annual Meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology
Conference Location
Austin, TX
ScholarWorks Citation
Williams, Todd; VerWey, A.; and Galen, L., "Unpacking Religious Prosociality: Personality Ratings are Influenced by Religious Stereotype and Group Identity Bias" (2014). Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants. 695.
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/fsdg/695
