Perceived prevalence of atheists reduces prejudice against atheists

Will Gervais has recently published "Finding the Faithless: Perceived Atheist Prevalence Reduces Anti-Atheist Prejudice" in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. he wondered whether a perceived increase in the number of atheists would lead to increased prejudice against atheists. He has found the opposite. Evidence or belief that atheists are prevalent actually reduces prejudice against atheists. Therefore, atheists would be advised to remind others that they are atheists so that others tend to believe that there are significant numbers of atheists out there. At The Intersection, Chris Mooney suggests that atheists should nonetheless avoid being confrontational, because confrontation tends tend "to prompt negative emotional reactions, and thus defensiveness and inflexibility." That is the combination I have settled into over the past couple of years. I don't hesitate to tell others that I am a non-theist (I avoid the use of the word atheist because is suggests that I hold all of the same views as the "new atheists" (which I don't, though there is considerable overlap). When I make it clear that I am a non-theist to a theist, however, I do so in a non-confrontational way, which, in my experience, invites much more productive dialogue. See my five part series, Mending Fences (start here), for my views in detail. How prevalent are atheists worldwide? Here one of the opening paragraphs from the Gervais study: But they are numerous. Globally, atheists are 58 times more numerous than Mormons, 41 times more numerous than Jewish people, and twice as numerous as Buddhists; nonbelievers constitute the fourth largest religious group in the world, trailing only Christians, Muslims, and Hindus. Despite the prevalence of atheists and the popular attention atheism is receiving, there is little scientific research on atheism and attitudes toward atheists. Yet religious belief is declining in the postindustrial world, and the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990. Under billboards reading, for example, “Don’t Believe in God? You Are Not Alone,” American atheists are increasingly making their numbers known. What effects might the increasing numbers and visibility of atheists have on attitudes toward atheists? This straightforward question has important implications not only for the specific social psychology of atheism and attitudes toward atheists but also for the broader social psychological understanding of the relationship between prejudice and perceived outgroup size, possibly suggesting a novel approach to prejudice reduction. [Citations omitted]

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What is it about libertarians?

Ronald Baily of Reason has gathered recent psychological research examining the personality characteristics of libertarians. He notes that Jonathan Haidt has had to revamp his left/right political ideology analysis to accommodate libertarians. They are different from the left and the right. What did Haidt find?

“Libertarians share with liberals a distaste for the morality of Ingroup, Authority, and Purity characteristic of social conservatives, particularly those on the religious right,” Haidt et al. write. Libertarians scored slightly below conservatives on harm and slightly above on fairness. These results suggest that libertarians are “likely to be less responsive than liberals to moral appeals from groups who claim to be victimized, oppressed, or treated unfairly.”

There is a lot of good stuff in this article, including this additional survey of the ways in which they are different than those on the traditional left and right:
Another survey, the Schwartz Value Scale, measures the degree to which participants regard 10 values as guiding principles for their lives. Libertarians put higher value on hedonism, self-direction, and stimulation than either liberals or conservatives, and they put less value than either on benevolence, conformity, security, and tradition. Like liberals, libertarians put less value on power, but like conservatives they have less esteem for universalism. Taking these results into account, Haidt concludes that “libertarians appear to live in a world where traditional moral concerns (e.g., respect for authority, personal sanctity) are not assigned much importance.” Haidt and his colleagues eventually recognized that their Moral Foundations Questionnaire was blinkered by liberal academic bias, failing to include a sixth moral foundation, liberty. They developed a liberty scale to probe this moral dimension. Unsurprisingly, the researchers found that libertarians dramatically outscored liberals and conservatives when it came to putting a high value on both economic and lifestyle liberty. Haidt and his colleagues conclude, “Libertarians may fear that the moral concerns typically endorsed by liberals or conservatives are claims that can be used to trample upon individual rights—libertarians’ sacred value.”

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Intelligence can exacerbate motivated reasoning

At The Intersection (no relation), Chris Mooney points out that Intelligence doesn’t protect us from Motivated reasoning. In fact, intelligence can invite this problem. What is "motivated reasoning"?

In motivated reasoning, memory searches, interpretations of incoming information, evaluations of arguments, and even perception, are biased in such a way that we will be more likely to arrive at a desired conclusion (called a directional motivation . . . ). The way this is achieved, in essence, is by limiting the information that is retrieved from long term memory into current working memory (the store of information that is available for current processing), thereby biasing the information available for supporting or evaluating conclusions and arguments, as well as interpreting incoming information.
Climate-change denial is a good place to observe motivated reasoning in action: [More . . . ]

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Racist Reflex or ?

A 21 year-old man was released without charges after being arrested near the Delmar Loop MetroLink in St. Louis on Saturday. The police officer who arrested the 21-year-old experienced a minor head injury. The St. Louis Dispatch and KMOV report that the officer was breaking up a fight that allegedly drew a crowd of between 50 and 100 people, including many teenagers. In response to the “incident” and complaints that teens who are “not from University City,” are “wandering,” “roaming” and “brushing up against customers,” along the Delmar Loop, a Tuesday meeting was called between Delmar Loop business owners, representatives from Mayor Slay’s office, University City officials and representatives of Washington University. (Washington University’s Office of General Counsel denied any involvement in this meeting). Several proposals emerged from the meeting. These include “lowering the city’s curfew to 6 p.m.,” rounding up teenagers to “let them sit in a paddy wagon for three hours,” adding a police substation to process them and “closing the Loop’s MetroLink station early on Fridays and Saturdays.” To curb the influx of “unruly” young adults, the University City manager promised “active enforcement of all ordinances.”

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It’s time for church . . . er, I mean baseball

I live in St. Louis, where major league baseball is taken seriously. After I was invited to attend the opening day game as part of a business function this year, and I attended as an amateur anthropologist, not as a baseball fan. A bit of background: About 15 years ago I was an avid sports fan. I followed all of the St. Louis professional teams. I watched some games on television, attended occasional games and read the sports page almost every day. For reasons I don't really understand, I decided to stop being a sport fan. I was frustrated that I didn't have enough time to get to attend my alleged priorities, which included trying to become a writer and trying to achieve a deeper understanding of cognitive science. What could I do to make room for those things in my schedule? Well . . . I was spending about 10 hours per week being a sports fan. If I went cold turkey, I'd have about 500 hours more per week to do other things. That's the equivalent of 12 weeks of vacation. So I did go cold turkey (interrupted only to follow the St. Louis Rams for a few years while they were Superbowl winners and contenders). For the most part, I've successfully cultivated a high level of apathy for professional sports. I don't feel any compulsion to spend any money on tickets or to ever to read the sports page. I really don't care whether the team won last night. My experiment was a success. A bonus is that I now have a privileged perch from which to appreciate the extraordinary lengths to which sports fans spend their money and invest their time in order to root for their teams. In St. Louis, rooting for the Cardinals is far more than entertainment. It's much like a religion. Check out the schedule above (you can click on any of the images for an enlarged view). It is the official list of 162 holy days of 2011. I know many people who plan their schedules around the baseball calendar. Being knowledgeable about the local sports teams is also the preferred ice-breaker at many business gatherings: "So, do you think LaRussa left the starting pitcher in for too many innings last night?" Sorry, but I don't know. Sometimes I admit, "I gave up sports." Inevitably jaws drop. I don't dare follow up by blunting saying, "I wanted to live more in the real world. Therefore, a few days ago I attended the St. Louis Cardinal's opening day game as a member of an out-group. I was much worse than a luke-warm fan. You see, if you offered most sports fans 12 extra weeks of vacation, they'd spend it watching more sports and thinking more about sports. It wouldn't occur to them that they should go cold turkey and pursue anything else. What else is there of equal of greater importance? In this religion of St. Louis Baseball, Albert Pujols is the Savior. Incredible amounts of ink have been spilled over whether this man will sign a new contract with St. Louis. People relate to Albert; apparently, they think that they are Albert. If you attend a St. Louis Cardinal Baseball game, you will see many hundreds of people wearing Pujols jerseys, and most of them are adults. What are they thinking? Are they thinking "I'm like Pujols because I am wearing his jersey"? Are they thinking "I want people to think I'm a bit like Albert Pujols when I wear his Jersey"? Are they thinking that they somehow get credit for Pujols' accomplishments because they are wearing his jersey? Even after leaving the stadium, you will see Pujols jerseys all over town (I spotted the one to the right at a grocery store after the game). Playing into the role of "Savior," Albert has an interest in a local Christian radio station. [And do check out the image to the left, where I caught Pujols having a chat with Pujols.] The physical church is Busch Stadium, of course. I see people staring at it even in the dead of winter. People have been known to get married at Busch Stadium (there was a wedding in the snow last week). You would have been amazed to hear how the team "needed" a new stadium a few years ago. When something is considered "sacred" there is no rational bargaining. The owners said we need it, so we go the new stadium. There are sacred food items in the religion of baseball. I do believe that nachos serve as the bread of the religion of baseball, and the "wine" is obviously beer. At opening day, I was greeting with twin 30-foot bottles of beer. But it can't be a religion because the fans are really attending those games because they are serious about baseball, right? Well I'm not so certain of that. If you had to guess what people do the most of at ball games, it would either be eat and drink, or socialize. The food stands are ubiquitous, and I would estimate that far more than half of the people attending aren't concentrating on the game much at all. How else can you explain that thousands of people are leaving a close game in the 7th or 8th inning? They paid $50/seat and they aren't going to watch every pitch? It seems as though most people go to the ball game to bask in the crowd, and to display their loyalty. When you are surrounded by 50,000 people, regardless of what is going on, it does seem important. And that is very much how it is in most churches.

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