Measuring a God-Shaped Hole: Constructs of Religiosity and Anti-Atheist Attitudes

• In Event: 165 - Section on Sociology of Religion Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 02. Religion and Its Challengers

Abstract

The current literature on negative attitudes towards atheists reports many Americans carry cultural prejudice, seeing them as immoral, cynical, and hedonistic, and that individuals with high levels of religiosity are more likely to hold these kinds of biases. That story may be too simple, though, because we do not know what kinds of religiosity are associated with these attitudes. Using structural equation modeling with survey data from The American Mosaic Project, this paper demonstrates that a latent construct of high religious centrality—a personal identity favoring the integration of faith with other roles in social life—is distinctly and significantly associated with public and private distrust of atheists, unlike high religious participation or orthodox religious beliefs. These results suggest that it is methodologically prudent to carefully distinguish respondents’ constructs of religiosity when attempting to explain negative attitudes towards religious and non-religious minority groups, and they invite a critical approach to studying dominant cultural forms of religiosity in the United States.

Authors

• Evan Stewart, University of Minnesota

• Penny A. Edgell, University of Minnesota