Components of Religious Beliefs, Religious Maturity, and Religious History as Predictors of Proscribed and Non-Proscribed Explicit and Implicit Prejudices

<p>Many theorists propose a link between religiosity and prejudice; however, many studies show contradictory results. Recently, there has also been a growing interest in the differences between implicit and explicit prejudices. Current literature suggests that explicit and implicit attitudes are linked and one can influence the other. However, it is possible there are different sets of predictors of each attitude type. African-Americans have historically been the most openly targeted minority in America. Recently, gay men and lesbians have also faced increased prejudice. The purpose of this project was to examine several aspects of religiosity (involvement, intrinsic/extrinsic, fundamentalism, quest, history, and maturity) and their relationship to explicit and implicit attitudes. Two hundred and eighty eight undergraduate students completed an online questionnaire measuring aspects of religiosity and computer based measures of explicit and implicit attitudes. We found that very few aspects of religious beliefs predicted explicit attitudes toward African-Americans but almost all aspects were related to explicit attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. Religiosity did not predict implicit attitudes toward African-Americans or gay men, however; some aspects of religiosity were related to implicit prejudice toward lesbians. Furthermore, there were moderating and mediating effects for the implicit attitudes toward lesbians but not any other target group. This study demonstrates that relationships with religiosity and prejudice vary across aspects of religiosity and type or prejudice. These results suggest reasons for the diversity of previous findings and set directions for more comprehensive future research.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2010

Author dc:creator

• Fiedorowicz, Luke

• attitudes
• prejudice
• racism
• religiosity
• religious beliefs
• sexual Prejudice
• Social Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/240

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ecommons.luc.edu:luc_diss-1239