Robert Lundblad

Document Type

Dissertation

Publication Date

12-2001

Abstract

Prejudicial beliefs and behaviors have been viewed from numerous perspectives. Four factors, religious attitudes, pride of in-group membership, traditional beliefs, and certain personality types, have individually been shown to be associated with prejudice. Some researchers have looked at a few of these factors together, but none have looked at all four together to examine potential relationships and their individual contribution to prejudicial thinking. This research is designed to investigate attitudes toward out-groups, sources of prejudice, and religious outlook. Four measures of religious attitudes, the Quest scale of the Religious Life Inventory (RLI), the Intrinsic and Extrinsic scales from the Religious Orientation Scale (ROS), and the Christian Orthodoxy Scale were used to measure religious attributes. The Right Wing Authoritarian Scale (RWA) was used to identify the extent of authoritarian thinking. A customized form of the Group Self-Esteem Inventory (GESI) was used to measure a sense of Christian in-group thinking. Attitudes toward several out-groups (lesbians, gay males, and obese persons) were used as measures ofthe dependent variables using the Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gays Scale (ATLG) and the Anti-Fat Attitudes Scale (AFA), respectively. The results are analyzed through correlations and regression looking for interactions with, and contributions to, prejudice in a sample population. Participants included undergraduate students at local public and private institutions. Prior research predicted that findings would show positive correlations between anti-homosexual prejudice and extrinsic religiosity, intrinsic religiosity, Christian group affiliation, religious tenets, and authoritarianism. Research with the Quest scale has not revealed association with the ATLG or AF A Anti-overweight prejudice has not been related to these attributes in past research. However, past research has shown authoritarianism to be correlated with many sorts of prejudices. Results of this study indicate authoritarianism is a consistent predictor of prejudice against both homosexuals and overweight persons with a beta coefficient of between . 61 and .76 in the case of anti-homosexual prejudice and a weaker range of .21 and .27 with overweight persons. Extrinsic religiosity is a negative correlate with a beta coefficient of .40-.43 for anti-homosexual prejudice and -.1 5 regarding overweight persons. Christian orthodoxy is a significant correlate and predictor of anti-homosexual prejudice (beta = .26) and Christian group affiliation is a weak negative predictor of anti-overweight prejudice (beta of-.17- .18). The findings are discussed in terms of previous investigations, particularly in regard to the strong role authoritarianism plays in prejudice and the possible social roles associated with an extrinsic orientation.

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