Researchers in the psychology of religion have begun utilizing priming methods to investigate the effects of the salience of religious concepts. These tightly controlled laboratory studies have demonstrated that priming religion may increase intergroup bias in both religious and nonreligious persons. The present study examined this possibility in a religiously and culturally diverse population using ecologically valid methods. Participants were recruited as they passed by either a religious or nonreligious structure in Western Europe. Participants in the religious context self-reported more negative attitudes toward non-Christian groups, more conservative political attitudes, and more personal religiousness and spirituality regardless of their personal belief in God. Results are discussed in terms of intergroup bias and salience of religious norms and stereotypes across cultures. Notes 1There were no significant differences between nationalities of participants, countries of collection, weather conditions, or times of day. 2Given the expected diversity of the sample, target groups were selected to represent attitudes toward a wide variety of groups unrelated to the religious context. Groups were selected to represent religious outgroups, religious value violating outgroups, racial outgroups, and social status outgroups. Note. *p < .05 **p < .005 ***p < .001. 3All attitude items remained significant when participants from London were removed from analysis except for attitudes toward foreigners (p = .12).
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LaBouff et al. (2012) studied this question.