Associations among religiousness, social attitudes, and prejudice in a national random sample of American adults.

Psychologists have devoted considerable theoretical and empirical attention to the scientific study of social attitudes and prejudice. Most of these studies were conducted with relatively small, nonrepresentative samples of college students. In this study, the authors analyzed self-report data from a random probability sample with over 1500 American adults. Participants answered questions about their religiousness, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), political ideology, demographic characteristics, and attitudes toward persons in historically disadvantaged social groups (i.e., ethnic minorities and homosexual individuals). In support of the selective intolerance hypothesis, general religiousness was associated with less accepting attitudes toward homosexuals and negligibly with general racial prejudice. These associations remained when controlling for some other known individual differences in prejudice. The authors tentatively conclude that general religiousness is not associated with universal acceptance of others. Rather, general religiousness appears to be linked with selective self-reported intolerance toward persons perceived to behave in a manner inconsistent with some traditional religious teachings.