The Robustness of Anti-Atheist Prejudice as Measured by Way of Cognitive Errors

ABSTRACT

Over the past decade, distrust of atheists has been documented in psychological literature yet remains relatively understudied. The current research sought to test the robustness of anti-atheist prejudice. Specifically, it examined the extent to which an individual’s anti-atheist prejudice remained unchanged in light of new information. One hundred participants from the United Kingdom completed an online experiment. The experiment involved reading a vignette describing the actions of an untrustworthy individual. Participants were asked to make a judgment with regards to the untrustworthy individual’s identity. The occurrence of a cognitive bias, namely, the conjunction fallacy, was used to measure the frequency of anti-atheist prejudice. An examination of judgment errors (i.e., conjunction fallacies) under different conditions was used to test the robustness of anti-atheism prejudice. The results show that anti-atheist prejudice is not confined either to dominantly religious countries or to religious individuals but rather appears to be a robust judgment about atheists.