Examining Priming Effects of Jewish Culture and Religion on Impressions of a Jewish Individual

Recent research identified distinct cultural and religious components of American Jewish people's identities (Friedlander et al., 2010). Consequently, we conducted a series of studies assessing Jewish stereotype content and activation that confirmed these components also comprise the Jewish stereotype (Letson & Seta, 2011). The current study expands upon that research by exploring how these components affect perceivers' impressions of an ambiguous Jewish target. Participants were primed with either culture or religion prior to reading about and evaluating a Jewish man's (David) ambiguous behaviors. Participants also rated David on a variety of cultural and religious traits as well as provided overall impressions of him. We found that there were significant differences in how participants explained David's behavior based on their primed concept such that participants primed with culture thought cultural attributions better explained David's behavior than did participants primed with religion. Further, participants primed with culture thought cultural attributions better explained his behavior than did religious explanations. No differences in attributions made existed for participants primed with religion. Additionally, we found a significant difference in trait ratings of David whereby all participants thought religious traits better characterized David than did cultural ones. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Letson, Sarah J.

• Culture

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/37288

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/37288