Do you believe in atheists? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice.
by Gervais, Will M.; Shariff, Azim F.; Norenzayan, Ara
Recent polls indicate that atheists are among the least liked people in areas with religious majorities (i.e., in most of the world). The sociofunctional approach to prejudice, combined with a cultural evolutionary theory of religion's effects on cooperation, suggest that anti-atheist prejudice is particularly motivated by distrust. Consistent with this theoretical framework, a broad sample of American adults revealed that distrust characterized anti-atheist prejudice but not anti-gay prejudice (Study 1). In subsequent studies, distrust of atheists generalized even to participants from more liberal, secular populations. A description of a criminally untrustworthy individual was seen as comparably representative of atheists and rapists but not representative of Christians, Muslims, Jewish people, feminists, or homosexuals (Studies 2–4). In addition, results were consistent with the hypothesis that the relationship between belief in God and atheist distrust was fully mediated by the belief that people behave better if they feel that God is watching them (Study 4). In implicit measures, participants strongly associated atheists with distrust, and belief in God was more strongly associated with implicit distrust of atheists than with implicit dislike of atheists (Study 5). Finally, atheists were systematically socially excluded only in high-trust domains; belief in God, but not authoritarianism, predicted this discriminatory decision-making against atheists in high trust domains (Study 6). These 6 studies are the first to systematically explore the social psychological underpinnings of anti-atheist prejudice, and converge to indicate the centrality of distrust in this phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)

A big problem with those religion studies is also that they have not taken proper context into account for the opposite end of the SWB scale. It of course may have just been beyond the scale of the study and indeed something the researchers knew of, but for their purposes it was immaterial as they were focused only on the religious aspect of being happy. But, it may show that on the opposite side (the minority group) they are being largely dismissed and extricated from their communities from the religious as they are no longer conforming and seen as both secular and outsiders. Much like what @berticus included, may be the opposite end of the stick and the reason why the study breaks down outside the happily religious. The SWB may be a prejudiced study and worse the people the people that make the study forever ring true may in fact be the ones that are happy.

This is a reason why I hate many polls and studies--even though I think they are trying their best; some just can't reliably find real evidence that covers all it's variations, groups, counter-results, major variables and minor, and of course history and context. In this case the reason for being happy may have been as simple as having a common belief, goals, and most importantly community. If the other people that where unhappy lived without any real "community", goals, and knew people that had common beliefs he most likely was unhappy. If they had none of or were missing two or so factors I mentioned, I'm willing to bet they were depressed.

Research is never perfect, and there are always alternative explanations. I don't think that's a reason to hate studies.

Having said that, I think you should read the full article if you haven't already (I can get it for you if you would like). The mediation analyses are all fairly clear, and social support is in the model. In other words, a lot of what you're alluding to, they cover.

>> ^berticus:

Research is never perfect, and there are always alternative explanations. I don't think that's a reason to hate studies.
Having said that, I think you should read the full article if you haven't already (I can get it for you if you would like). The mediation analyses are all fairly clear, and social support is in the model. In other words, a lot of what you're alluding to, they cover.


Yeah, I'd appreciate that. I think my main concern here was that this study wasn't from a group that was purposely looking for a case study that would put religion in a positive light. The main reason for this was that the main factors involved, in many ways, literally run parallel to obvious negative factors that would create their situation every-time and the biggest culprit would be the situation you find minorities in.

So I'm sure the group may be OK in the end (if you give me that full paper, I'll do some digging around and see if I find any links with religion), I just wanted to be sure that this was not the case here. Moreover, what you provide me will help me see what type of factors they decided to include and realistically how in depth this really went.

As I said, it just seems hard to get a real "usable" result out of this. By that I mean, as a minority--just because of that factor alone--puts you up for many factors that will throw you right off the SWB scale (like living conditions, parents in household, job/income, housing, etc...). Lots of these things are tied together when you are a minority. It also answers the study before it's complete, depending on what the prime reasons for doing it were (if they're to validate opinion-bad news, if they're just data collection-not so bad, etc...).


Thanks for getting the study. I really just want to know all the primary factors and of course the primary group's name and affiliations.

@kceaton1 here you go http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1590462/psp_101_6_1278.pdf

1. people are becoming more isolated, nuclear families are normal
2. people's beliefs are becoming more fragmented
3. churches suck
4. pastors suck
5. religion sucks

consider the fact that network television is losing viewers. they are losing viewers to netflix, cable tv, WWW, x-box. Similarly, churches are losing parishioners.
Combine that with the fact that only the lowest intelligence, least curious people are going into the pulpit.
And keep your sons' penis out of the priest's mouth. (am i too direct?)

did I leave out anything

what's the name for that religious movement that promises you riches only if you title more than you can afford?
That's an example of a religion gaining members. by taking in desperate people and lying to them