Judgments of Religiosity following Minimal Interaction

Abstract

In the current study, unacquainted groups of both religious Christians and nonreligious atheists/agnostics rated themselves and each other on a number of attributes, including religiosity and morality. A Social Relations analysis revealed small, but statistically significant levels of consensus for impressions of religiosity. Subsequent correlations indicated that groups relied on the target's gender and race to reach consensus. Analyses of participants’ idiosyncratic ratings revealed similarity between religious and non-religious perceivers in terms of their association of high morality with religiousness. Religious identification did moderate the relationship between religiosity and emotional stability, as well as between religiosity and extraversion. These results indicate that group stereotypes for religiosity are largely shared among both adherents and non-adherents.