This particular study focuses on the relationship between religious fundamentalism and prejudice, as it is the predominate idea that these two tend to go hand in hand. The overarching question is “why is religious fundamentalism (RF) so closely tied to prejudice? There are two separate mechanisms the author focuses on: cognitive styles and fears. In regard to fear, the author hypothesizes that religious fundamentalists are afraid of challenges to their worldview. However, before these hypotheses are tested, a measure of fundamental religiousness needs to be created and tested. Religious fundamentalism in this piece is defined by belief in a single religious text, belief that evil must be actively fought, and belief that those who follow the true religion have a special relationship with God. Due to all of these proclaimed truths, religious fundamentalism is associated with specific, rigid cognitive styles. Additionally, religious fundamentalism has been found to be positively correlated with prejudice against homosexuals. However, this author claims that religious fundamentalism does not directly cause prejudice. Below are the methods of research used in this study.

The type of data being collected is self-identity and/or deeply held opinions and beliefs, collected through questionnaires.

Students were recruited as participants for this study from a psychology class at Arizona State University. They were compensated for their participation with class participation credit. There were 90 males and 109 females all between the ages of 17 and 30, who were asked to complete a questionnaire. 70% of the participants were white, and 30.7% were Roman Catholic. The questionnaire tested The Homophobia Scale, the Modern Racism Scale, the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, The RF scale, Need for Cognition, Personal Need for Structure, Preference for Consistency, Personal Fear of Invalidity, Religious Proscription of Racism,  and Religious Proscription of Homophobia. Based on answers in regard to all of these already established models, an analysis was done though what I assume was a qualitative coding technique. The results found a significant indirect effect of religious fundamentalism on homophobia, benevolent sexism, and hostile sexism, but not a significant relationships in regard to modern racism. These are the most important outcomes from the study, but the author also proposes ideas for continuing this study in the future.

I think this was a very interesting study to read, as it is generally applicable to the research study I have proposed. As morally unfortunate as it is, this study showed there indeed is a relationship between prejudice and religious fundamentalism, especially in regard to sexism. This supports a lot of my ideas about the role of females in fundamentalist religious communities. There were some limitations to this study, but the author addressed these in great length in the conclusion. Overall though, I thought this was a well carried out study.

Hill, E., Terrell, H., Cohen, A., & Nagoshi, C. (2010). The Role of Social Cognition in the Religious Fundamentalism-Prejudice Relationship. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 49(4), 724-739. Retrieved from http://0-www.jstor.org.books.redlands.edu/stable/40959059