Distrust persists after subverting atheist stereotypes

Abstract

Antiatheist prejudice appears to be common. This prejudice may stem from distrust. However, the factors influencing distrust are not fully understood. The current research identified common stereotypes about atheists, tested the intuitiveness of those stereotypes, and determined whether distrust toward atheists depends more on the label “atheist” or the attributes atheists are thought to possess. Study 1 (N = 100) and Study 2 (N = 149) identified several attributes thought to be most characteristic of atheists and least characteristic of Christians (or vice versa). Study 3 (N = 219) demonstrated that atheists and Christians are intuitively associated with the respective traits identified in Studies 1 and 2. Study 4 (N = 274) and Study 5 (N = 259) used fake social media profiles to manipulate target religious identification (atheist, Christian, or unspecified) and attributes (stereotypically atheist or stereotypically Christian) to determine the effect on trust ratings. Overall, the results of these studies indicate that atheists and Christians are explicitly and implicitly associated with different attributes and that, even when atheists possess stereotypically Christian attributes, Christians trust atheists significantly less than other Christians. These findings suggest that antiatheist prejudice is relatively insensitive to individual differences of the target.