Americans Intuitively Judge Atheists as Immoral [View all]

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New research finds a link between disbelief and unethical behavior is strongly lodged in Americans’ minds.

By Tom Jacobs • April 15, 2014 • 4:00 AM

Atheists have been speaking up more loudly in recent years, adding a fresh perspective to debates over meaning and morality. But in spite of this new visibility, the way Americans view non-believers remains extremely negative, according to a newly published study.

After reading a description of someone committing an immoral act, participants in five experiments “readily and intuitively assumed that the person was an atheist,” University of Kentucky psychologist Will Gervais reports in the online journal PLoS One. “Even atheist participants judged immoral acts as more representative of atheists than of other groups.”

The findings suggest our instinctive belief that moral behavior is dependent upon God—as ethical arbiter and/or assigner of divine punishment—creates a belief system strong enough to override evidence to the contrary. It leads people many to look at non-believers and reflexively assume the worst.

Gervais describes five experiments with a total of 1,152 participants, all recruited online via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. (He notes that users of that service have previously been found to be “less religious, on average, than Americans in general,” making his findings all the more striking.)

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/americans-intuitively-judge-atheists-immoral-79095/

Full study here:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0092302