Inter-Religious Relationships and Anxiety in the Regulation of Automatic Inter-Religious Prejudice

109 Pages·2006·0.51 MB·English

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Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects CUNY Graduate Center
2-2014
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Karla J. Felix
Graduate Center, City University of New York
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Inter-Religious Relationships and Anxiety in the Regulation of Automatic Inter-Religious
Prejudice
by
Karla J. Felix

A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Psychology in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York
2014
ii

©2014
KARLA J. FELIX
All Rights Reserved
iii

This manuscript has been read and accepted for the
Graduate Faculty in Psychology in satisfaction of the
dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Curtis D. Hardin, PhD

________________ _________________________________________
Date Chair of Examining Committee

Maureen O’Connor, PhD

________________ _________________________________________
Date Chair of Examining Committee

Benzion Charowitz, PhD
Glen Haas, PhD
Aaron Kozbelt, PhD
Laura Rabin, PhD
Supervisory Committee

THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
iv

ABSTRACT
Inter-Religious Relationships and Anxiety in the Regulation of Automatic Inter-Religious
Prejudice
by
Karla J. Felix
Advisor: Curtis D. Hardin
Shared reality theory predicts and evidence suggests that inter-religious relationships are
motivated to maintain or regulate interpersonal interactions with others. However, this
motivation has been given little attention within the automatic attitude literature. This research is
centered on the idea that automatic prejudice is moderated by two fundamental themes, shared
reality and anxiety. These themes are reviewed to determine the degree to which participants
socially tune to ingroup versus outgroup religious experimenters. In Experiment 1, automatic
inter-religious attitudes toward Christian and Jewish experimenters were assessed via a
subliminal prime procedure. Religious orientation (extrinsic, intrinsic) and regulation of inter-
religious relationships were also investigated. Paternal shared reality but not maternal shared
reality moderated the effect of experimenter religion on automatic inter-religious attitudes. This
finding was also similar among highly devoted Christian participants. In addition to measuring
implicit inter-religious prejudice, Experiment 2 measured explicit measures of affect, intergroup
anxiety and blood pressure reactivity in addition to implicit prejudice. Christian participants
negative affect, systolic blood pressure, and pulse decreased as a result of interacting with
Christian and Jewish experimenters. Religious experimenters did not significantly affect
Christian and Jewish participants’ automatic inter-religious attitudes but only components of
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intergroup anxiety (belief similarity and intergroup interactions) were context dependent. The
effects were found not to be moderated by level of devotion or parental shared reality. This
research suggests inter-religious relationships among fathers but not mothers affect inter-
religious prejudice and these effects are further attributable to anxiety and blood pressure for
Christians but not Jews.
vi
Acknowledgements
I have been lucky to be surrounded by such talented and intelligent psychology faculty of
Brooklyn College. Peter Weston, Israel Abramov, Elisabeth Brauner, Andrew Delameter,
Matthew Erdelyi, Louise Hainline, Deborah Walder, Laraine McDonough, David Owen, Mel
Pipe, Frank Grasso all helped to shape my thinking from a timid undergraduate all the way to an
astute graduate student. I owe an enormous debt to Daniel Kurylo who kept me on track when I
was falling off. His patience and counsel will never be forgotten. I am grateful for to Maureen
O’Connor and Tracey Revenson for their leadership and generosity. The idea of this research
evolved from a study conducted in early 2000 under the guidance of Jaihyun Park at Baruch
College. Little did I know that his colleague, Curtis Hardin, would be joining Brooklyn College
and he would later help shape my fuzzy concept into a workable concrete project. It took time,
but he was able to see the end before I saw the beginning. His critical examination and passion
for the scientific process is like no other. Thank you to rest of the committee members, Benzion
Chanowitz, Laura Rabin, Aaron Kozbelt and Glen Hass for the guidance and wise comments.
Thank you to the nine amazing women who volunteered their time as experimenters,
without them, this would not have been possible: Dalia Jarara, Elena Poloumbis, Marta Mielicki,
Charon Kraus, Dalia Hasbini, Nofar Glisko, Natalie Mordechai, Sadaf Ubaid and Marina
Piavskaia. Much gratitude goes to Denis Thompson, Zainab Saleem, and Devorah Phillips for
cleaning the data, a tedious but vital job. Thank you to the Brooklyn College pool of students
who participated and for their instructors who helped me recruit them: Brandy Moore, Joanna
Serafin, Tashana Samuel, Kate and Kendall Eskine.
When things looked bleak and I thought I could not go any further, my friends and family
came to my aid. Thank you to Mary Collins, my dissertation coach who was my number one
supporter and helped me conquer my inner critics. Sending you a high five! Many thanks goes
to Maureen Ghans who provided much needed encouragement. I am grateful for my colleagues
Michael Magee, Angelika Seidel, and Rommel Robertson for their humor and camaraderie.
Thank you to my dear friends Amy DeRobertis and Grace Lee who instead of asking “when are
you going to finish?” asked “how can I help?”
Finally, my deepest thanks to the Gorman family for finding the humor in anything and
for the Felix family for their infinitesimal love, positivity and support.
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Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................................... iv
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ vi
Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... vii
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................x

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 1
A Brief Review of Automatic Attitudes .............................................................................................2
Protecting Religious Beliefs ............................................................................................................6
Affiliative Motivation .......................................................................................................................7
Attitude Shifts as a Function of Social Tuning .................................................................................9
Reduction in Implicit Prejudice .....................................................................................................10
Friendships Mediating the Reduction of Implicit Prejudice ..........................................................15
Evidence for Religious Influences on the Malleability of Automatic Attitudes .............................19

EXPERIMENT 1: THE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL TUNING ON AUTOMATIC
RELIGIOUS ATTITUDES ........................................................................................................24
Method ...........................................................................................................................................24
Results ...........................................................................................................................................32
Discussion ......................................................................................................................................36

EXPERIMENT 2: ANXIETY AND AUTOMATIC RELIGIOUS ATTITUDES ................40
Method ...........................................................................................................................................40
Results ...........................................................................................................................................45
Discussion ......................................................................................................................................54

GENERAL DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................... .57
viii

FIGURES AND TABLES…......................................................................................................63

APPENDICES…………………………………………………………………………..........…71

REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………….……..…..90
ix

List of Tables
Table 1. (Experiment 1) Christian Participants Zero-Order Correlations between explicit
intrinsic/extrinsic religious orientation and implicit religious attitudes…………………………65
Table 2. (Experiment 1) Jewish Participants Zero-Order Correlations between explicit
intrinsic/extrinsic religious orientation and implicit religious attitudes…………………………66
Table 3. (Experiment 2) Christian and Jewish Participants Emotions pre and post interactions
with Christian and Jewish Experimenter…………………………………………………...……67
Table 4. (Experiment 2) Christian and Jewish Participants Responses to Belief Similarity Scale
after interactions with Christian and Jewish Experimenter………………………………..…….68