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Making and Unmaking Prejudice: Religious Affiliation Mitigates the Impact of Mortality Salience on Out‐Group Attitudes
Author(s) -
Newheiser AnnaKaisa,
Hewstone Miles,
Voci Alberto,
Schmid Katharina
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal for the scientific study of religion
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.941
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1468-5906
pISSN - 0021-8294
DOI - 10.1111/jssr.12233
Subject(s) - mortality salience , terror management theory , religiosity , salience (neuroscience) , social psychology , prejudice (legal term) , social dominance orientation , religious orientation , psychology , in group favoritism , dominance (genetics) , death anxiety , social group , social identity theory , political science , politics , anxiety , law , psychiatry , biochemistry , chemistry , democracy , authoritarianism , cognitive psychology , gene
Research inspired by terror management theory has established that being reminded of the inevitability of death (i.e., “mortality salience”) leads people to express more negative attitudes toward out‐groups. We examined the hypothesis that being affiliated with a religion may buffer individuals against this negative impact of mortality salience. Two studies, conducted in two cultures that differ in their emphasis on religiosity (the United Kingdom and Italy), supported this hypothesis. Specifically, we found that mortality salience resulted in more negative out‐group attitudes only among participants not affiliated with any religion. Further, this buffering effect of religious affiliation was not moderated by participants’ specific religious orientations or by their levels of social dominance orientation. In addition, the buffering effect did not hold when prejudice against the target out‐group was not proscribed by religious authorities. Implications for research on religion, prejudice, and terror management are discussed.