Religious stereotypes and impression formation: Violent but at least Christian
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62174/psocial.7892Keywords:
Christian, Ultimate attribution error, Muslim, Prejudice, Violence.Abstract
Throughout history religion has been a source of conflict among human beings. In part this is so because it generates very cohesive groups that maintain rigid stereotypes about other religions. We have analyzed the influence of religious stereotypes (Christian, Muslim) and the verbal context (neutral, violent) on the assessment of personality. A total of 101 christian subjects participated in an online personality appraisal task. We used the labels "Christian-Bible" and "Muslim-Koran" to activate religious stereotypes, four neutral and four violent content words to determine neutral and violent verbal context, and a photograph of a man's face with neutral facial expression that would be subsequently assessed on personality dimensions (Big Five model: emotional stability, agreeableness, responsibility, sociability, and creativity). The analyses showed significant effects of the interaction between stereotype and verbal context on all personality dimensions except creativity. The sample rated less negatively the personality dimensions in a violent context, when the person was Christian (vs. Muslim). These results could be explained by the ultimate attribution error, because the exgroup personality was assessed more negatively than the ingroup personality as a cause of violent behavior. We discussed the role of these evaluative biases in the origin and maintenance of religious conflicts.
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