The Effects of Religiosity on Preconceived Value Judgments
Department
Psychological Science
Major
Psychology
Research Advisor
Canu, Will
Advisor's Department
Psychological Science
Abstract
The in-group bias suggests that “people of faith” will agree with others of the same religion and confirmation bias suggests that people will agree with others who share strongly held opinions, yet studies have seldom examined which bias is stronger. General Psychology students (n = 70) completed questionnaires regarding religiosity and their opinions on several controversial topics. Participants later chose sides regarding the death penalty in a specific criminal case after listening to two opinions: one from a person of opposing religion which matched the participant’s pre-existing death penalty beliefs, and another from a person of the participant’s religion that took an opposing view regarding the death penalty. It was hypothesized that high religiosity would predict siding with the same-religion peer (i.e., trumping death penalty opinions). Results suggest that this may be the case, future directions and the extent to which these findings can be generalized will be discussed.
Biography
Daniel Pope is a senior Psychology major at the University of Missouri--Rolla. He is the active president of the UMR branch of Psi Chi, a national honor society for psychology. He will be graduating in May ‘06 with a Bachelor’s of Science, after which Daniel is planning to pursue graduate study in Clinical Psychology.
Research Category
Humanities/Social Sciences
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Document Type
Poster
Presentation Date
12 Apr 2006, 1:00 pm
The Effects of Religiosity on Preconceived Value Judgments
The in-group bias suggests that “people of faith” will agree with others of the same religion and confirmation bias suggests that people will agree with others who share strongly held opinions, yet studies have seldom examined which bias is stronger. General Psychology students (n = 70) completed questionnaires regarding religiosity and their opinions on several controversial topics. Participants later chose sides regarding the death penalty in a specific criminal case after listening to two opinions: one from a person of opposing religion which matched the participant’s pre-existing death penalty beliefs, and another from a person of the participant’s religion that took an opposing view regarding the death penalty. It was hypothesized that high religiosity would predict siding with the same-religion peer (i.e., trumping death penalty opinions). Results suggest that this may be the case, future directions and the extent to which these findings can be generalized will be discussed.
