Godless by association: Deficits in trust mediate antiatheist stigma-by-association

In the United States, atheists elicit high levels of sociopolitical rejection that is primarily motivated by a lack of trust. Across three studies, we use evaluative conditioning (EC) as a theoretical framework to evaluate whether these deficits extended to candidates who are not atheists themselves...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of experimental psychology. Applied Vol. 25; no. 2; p. 303
Main Authors Franks, Andrew S, Scherr, Kyle C, Gibson, Bryan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.06.2019
Subjects
Female
Humans
Male
Politics
Social Perception
Social Stigma
Trust - psychology
United States
United States
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Summary:In the United States, atheists elicit high levels of sociopolitical rejection that is primarily motivated by a lack of trust. Across three studies, we use evaluative conditioning (EC) as a theoretical framework to evaluate whether these deficits extended to candidates who are not atheists themselves but merely perceived to be associated with atheism. Study 1 found that implicit trust, explicit trust, and voting intentions toward target candidates were all negatively impacted by an EC procedure that paired a candidate's face with words related to atheism. Study 2 found that trust and political support for a Christian candidate was eroded when he expressed proatheist public policy position. In both experiments, trust mediated the effects of atheist associations on voting intentions for religiously affiliated participants. Study 3 found the same moderated-mediation pattern. Religiously affiliated participants who perceived Barack Obama as being more favorable toward atheists were less likely to vote for him, in large part due to a lack of trust. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
ISSN:1939-2192
DOI:10.1037/xap0000179