Religious fundamentalism predicts prejudice only through rightwing authoritarianism

Evidence

And you know what it is: RWA scores. Fundamentalism correlated with prejudice because fundamentalists tended to be rightwing authoritarians. If you partial out the effect of mutual relationships with RWA scores, all of the connections between religious fundamentalism and authoritarian aggression become essentially zero. Do it the other way, and the RWA-aggression correlations are just nicked. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2134

Religious fundamentalism may be linked with prejudice because of a constellation of factors, especially a rigid, dog­ matic cognitive style (Hunsberger, Alisat, Pancer, & Pratt, 1996). In addition, fundamentalism is often considered the religious manifestation of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), reflecting obedience to authority, aggression toward out-groups, and conventionalism (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 2005). It is not surprising, then, that fundamentalism was linked with prejudice in earlier narrative reviews (Hunsberger & Jackson, 2005). — Deborah L. Hall and David C. Matz and Wendy Wood, Why Don’t We Practice What We Preach? A…, 20

Implicit racial prejudice was measured with S. D. Farnham’s (1998) Implicit Association Test (IAT), a software program that records reaction time as participants categorize names (of Blacks and Whites) and adjectives (pleasant or unpleasant). … White college students took significantly longer to categorize names and adjectives in one IAT condition (White–unpleasant, Black–pleasant) than in a second IAT condition (White–pleasant, Black–unpleasant), the race-IAT effect. A multiple regression analysis revealed that right-wing authoritarianism was positively associated with the race-IAT effect (β = .31), Christian orthodoxy was negatively related (β = –.26), and religious fundamentalism (β = .02) and social desirability (β = .08) were less related to this measure of implicit racial prejudice. Intrinsic, extrinsic, and quest religious orientations did not account for unique variation in implicit racial prejudice. — Wade C. Rowatt and Lewis M. Franklin, Christian Orthodoxy, Religious…, 9

A multiple regression analysis revealed that right-wing authoritarianism was positively associated with the race-IAT effect (β = .31), Christian orthodoxy was negatively related (β = –.26), and religious fundamentalism (β = .02) and social desirability (β = .08) were less related to this measure of implicit racial prejudice. Intrinsic, extrinsic, and quest religious orientations did not account for unique variation in implicit racial prejudice. — Wade C. Rowatt and Lewis M. Franklin, Christian Orthodoxy, Religious…, 9

Across studies, right-wing authoritarianism was a strong, positive correlate of self-reported racial prejudice (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992; Hunsberger, 1995; Laythe, Finkel, Bringle, & Kirkpatrick, 2002; Laythe et al., 2001; Wylie & Forest, 1992). Religious fundamentalism has also been found to correlate positively with self-reported racial prejudice (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992; Laythe et al., 2002; Wylie & Forest, 1992) and other discriminatory attitudes toward Blacks (Kirkpartrick, 1993). — Wade C. Rowatt and Lewis M. Franklin, Christian Orthodoxy, Religious…, 21

A multiple regression analysis was conducted to simultaneously control for the influence of RWA, RF, CO, and social desirability on the race-IAT effect (see Table 2). When entered in the regression analysis as simultaneous predictors, RWA was positively associated with the race-IAT effect ( .31, p < .05), CO was negatively correlated with the race-IAT effect ( –.26, p < .05), and RF ( .02) and social desirability ( .08) were uncorrelated with the race-IAT effect (R = .29). In other words, even though RWA and CO were positively correlated (r = .50, p < .001), RWA was positively correlated with implicit racial prejudice and CO was negatively correlated with implicit racial prejudice when we controlled for the other variables in the regression equation. — Wade C. Rowatt and Lewis M. Franklin, Christian Orthodoxy, Religious…, 72

The measures of ethnocentrism and reactions to homosexuals served as indices of prejudice similar to those used previously in this literature. We also included the Posse-Radicals and Trials measures to test our underlying notion that religious fundamentalists would be, not just prejudiced against certain minorities, but authoritarian aggressive in general. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2118

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the general theme in Altemeyer’s work that RWA is the latent variable driving many surface correlations. — connects to: Religious ideological orientation now predicts political views better than denomination or party — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 173; Religiosity does not moderate fear of atheists the way it moderates racial views — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 370; Strong religious identification predicts derogation of out-group members rather than anti-prejudice conviction. — Deborah L. Hall and David C. Matz and Wendy Wood, Why Don’t We Practice What We Preach? A…, 11 (+3 more)
• QUESTION: Fundamentalism near zero after partialing authoritarianism — worth chasing whether orthodoxy’s negative beta likewise survives when the constructs’ overlap is parsed out.
• DEFINE: Posse-Radicals and Trials operationalize authoritarian aggression — the construct distinction that anchors the RWA tradition.
• corroborated: 7 independent passages support this claim — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2134; Deborah L. Hall and David C. Matz and Wendy Wood, Why Don’t We Practice What We Preach? A…, 20; Wade C. Rowatt and Lewis M. Franklin, Christian Orthodoxy, Religious…, 9 (+3 more)