Examining Christians’ Reactions to Reminders of Religion–Science Conflict: Stereotype Threat versus Disengagement

Abstract

Stereotypes of religion (particularly Christianity) as incompatible with science are widespread, and prior findings show that Christians perform worse than non-Christians on scientific reasoning tasks following reminders of such stereotypes. The present studies (N = 1,456) examine whether these reminders elicit stereotype threat (i.e., fear of confirming negative societal stereotypes about one’s group), disengagement (i.e., distancing oneself from a domain perceived as incongruent with the values of one’s group), or both. In Studies 1 and 2, Christians demonstrated lower task performance and greater subjective feelings of stereotype threat (but did not spend less time on the task) relative to non-Christians when beliefs about Christianity–science incompatibility were chronic or made salient. Furthermore, the effects of incompatibility stereotypes on performance were most pronounced among Christians who identified strongly with science and hence worried most about confirming negative stereotypes (Studies 3–4). Implications for Christians’ responses to religion–science conflict narratives and participation in science are discussed.

Keywords

stereotype threat social identity threat religion and science religious stereotypes religion–science conflict

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