New research uncovers stereotype differences between agnostics and atheists

by Patricia Y. Sanchez

 May 9, 2022

in Psychology of Religion

https://www.psypost.org/2022/05/new-research-uncovers-stereotype-differences-between-agnostics-and-atheists-63107

Agnosticism and atheism are often categorized into one “nonreligious” group in research despite these being distinct belief systems. New research published in Psychology of Religion and Spirituality finds that people do have distinct stereotypes that differentiate agnosticism and atheism from each other and from Christianity.

“I was interested in this topic because I noticed that most research on nonreligious groups either focus solely on atheists or group atheists and agnostics together. Because self-identified agnostics are as prevalent in society as atheists, I wondered whether differences would emerge if we studies these groups separately,” explained study author Veronica Bergstrom, a PhD candidate in social psychology at the University of Toronto.

Prejudice against the nonreligious can exist for many reasons. One explanation is the “moral deficiency” hypothesis, where religious people stereotypically assume nonreligious people are more likely to act immorally. Another explanation is symbolic threat, where religious people view atheism and agnosticism as a threat to the societal, American norm of religiosity.

Although research has consistently categorized atheists and agnostics into one nonreligious category, there are some deviations between these groups that could be relevant for stereotyping. For example, atheists and Christians might both be perceived as highly dogmatic as these categorizations take a stand on the existence of a God whereas agnostics do not (referred to as dogmatic recalcitrance).

In Study 1, researchers were interested in how Americans differentially stereotype agnostics, atheists, and Christians (as they are the religious majority in the U.S.). Researchers recruited a final sample of 118 U.S. adult residents from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online platform. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions. In one condition, they were provided with definitions of agnostic, atheist, and Christian and asked to list up to 5 stereotypes that most people hold about each religious group. In the other condition, participants did the same but were prompted to give their own definitions of each religious group. The researchers focused on atheist vs. agnostic comparisons.

Only 56% of participants in the definition-generated condition correctly defined agnosticism. “Participants indicated that atheists are generally viewed as more evil, immoral, intolerant, pushy, rude, and satanic than agnostics. In contrast, agnostics were thought to be viewed as more confused, indecisive, questioning, cowardly, kind, curious, neutral, and scientific than atheists,” wrote the researchers. Atheists, but not agnostics, were reported to be morally worse, meaner, and colder than Christians. These patterns were demonstrated regardless of whether the participants were provided a definition of the religious groups or if they gave their own.

Study 2 sought to provide stronger support for the findings of Study 1. The researchers also included a measure of belief in God to examine whether this impacts how people stereotype the different religious groups. They recruited a final sample of 244 adult U.S. residents from MTurk. Participants were presented with and given definitions of three religious groups (agnostics, atheists, and Protestants). They were asked to rate the groups on 10 trait pairs selected from the traits given in Study 1 (i.e., immoral-moral, cowardly-brave, indecisive-decisive) for how representative they were of each religious group. Participants also completed a measure of their level of belief in God.

Results show that atheists were rated less moral, trustworthy, and safe compared to agnostics, who were rated lower on these traits compared to Protestants, supporting the moral deficiency hypothesis. Results also show that agnostics were rated more trustworthy than atheists, but less trustworthy than Protestants, providing support for the symbolic threat hypothesis. Further, Protestants were rated as older, more loyal, more patriotic, and more predictable than both atheists and agnostics. Results also show that agnostics were seen as less decisive than atheists and Protestants, but more tolerant than atheists.  Agnostics were rated as equally brave, predictable, and loyal as atheists, which contradicts the dogmatic recalcitrance hypothesis.

“Although atheists and agnostics have stereotypes in common, important differences do exist. For example, agnostics are perceived as less immoral but more indecisive than atheists. These differences in stereotypes might lead to different experiences of discrimination,” Bergstrom told PsyPost.

Belief in God was relevant in some of these ratings. For example, participants with low belief in God rated Protestants and agnostics as equally moral and brave; and participants with high belief in God rated Protestants as more moral and braver than agnostics. Similar patterns to this emerged for several trait ratings including decisiveness, loyalty, safeness, tolerance, and trustworthiness.

Altogether, findings give support for both the moral deficiency and symbolic threat hypotheses of prejudice against the nonreligious. Support for the dogmatic recalcitrance hypothesis was mixed across these two studies. “Future work should explore the degree to which context influences when agnostics are viewed as more indecisive than atheists. For example, are agnostics perceived to be indecisive about both inconsequential choices (e.g., which detergent to buy) and major life decisions (e.g., bearing children)?”

The researchers do cite some limitations to this work. “Agnostics are an extremely difficult group to study because being agnostic is not mutually exclusive with atheism or theism. In other words, it is possible to be an agnostic atheist or agnostic theist,” Bergstrom said. “Additionally, many people do not know what it means to be agnostic.”

“In our study, stereotype content did not seem to differ depending on whether the perceiver could accurately define agnosticism. However, future work will need to replicate this finding with a larger sample. Additionally, future studies will need to assess whether differences in stereotype content result in different experiences of discrimination.”

The study, “To believe or not to believe Stereotypes about agnostics“, was authored by Veronica N. Z. Bergstrom, Jason E. Plaks, and Alison L. Chasteen.