White Religious Iconography Increases Anti-Black Attitudes

摘要

Recent studies have found that activating religious concepts via priming techniques can increase individuals' anti-Black attitudes. To date, however, no research has examined whether priming religious images rather than words leads to similar effects, or whether activation of different components of religiosity produces comparable patterns of anti-Black prejudice. In the current study, we examined these questions by subliminally exposing participants to images that represented religious (e.g., church) or supernatural concepts (e.g., Jesus) before their racial attitudes were assessed. We also examined whether such effects depend on the racial depiction of a supernatural agent. In Experiment 1, exposure to an image of White Jesus increased White individuals' anti-Black attitudes relative to exposure to images of Black Jesus, a concrete religious object, and a nonreligious object. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, as well as provided evidence that the increase in White individuals' anti-Black attitudes was because of exposure to White portrayals of Jesus and not simply an effect of being primed with White male figures generally. Implications and future research directions are discussed.