Prosocial religious cohesion inherently requires excluding nonbelievers from trust

Evidence

Despite the American exception, as a rule, and with the usual caveat “all-else-being-equal,” strong secular institutions significantly dampen believers’ distrust of atheists. Nevertheless, cross-cultural studies such as this one, as insightful as they are, have one big weakness: they cannot tell us with certainty the causal direction of the effect. There is always the possibility that some other third variable that we did not think of causes societies to develop strong institutions and causes people who live in these societies to trust atheists. The gold standard for establishing causality is the experiment with random assignment and a control condition. In a series of such experiments led by Will Gervais, we wanted to know if mere reminders of secular authority would reduce distrust of atheists. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 307 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Fake believers would invade and destroy prosocial religious groups without safeguards; Prosocial religious groups outcompeted rivals through internal cooperation.; Anti-atheist exclusion rises when trust matters critically in a role (+6 more)

Related

• Nonbelievers show mild trust toward believers while believers trust only their own (similarity 0.94)
• Strong secular institutions substitute for and undermine belief in God (similarity 0.88)
• Anti-atheist exclusion rises when trust matters critically in a role (similarity 0.87)
• Strong secular institutions reduce believers’ need to distrust atheists (similarity 0.86)
• An unlikely mechanism reduces atheist distrust even among believers (similarity 0.85)
• Secular institutions, atheist prevalence, and religiosity decline reinforce each other in a self-amplifying loop (similarity 0.84)
• Religious cues harness situational power where secular institutions are absent (similarity 0.84)
• Atheists generally do not distrust religious believers (similarity 0.84)
• Anti-atheist prejudice stems from trust concerns, not xenophobia or outgroup dislike (similarity 0.84)
• Religious belief strongly predicts distrust of atheists (similarity 0.83)
• Fake believers would invade and destroy prosocial religious groups without safeguards (similarity 0.82)
• Strong secular institutions raise trust and cooperation for believers and nonbelievers alike (similarity 0.82)
• Atheism can become stable once multiple enabling conditions align (similarity 0.82)
• Distrust of atheists exceeds what warmth and competence stereotypes alone predict (similarity 0.82)
• Cross-national correlations cannot establish causal direction for atheist distrust (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Anti-atheist exclusion rises when trust matters critically in a role #expands (0.92)
• Nonbelievers show mild trust toward believers while believers trust only their own #corroborates (0.85)
• Strong secular institutions reduce believers’ need to distrust atheists #qualifies (0.78) — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 307