Social Norms and Feedback about Prejudice: Religious Justification or Suppression?

Abstract

People often experience conflict between their prejudiced feelings and social norms that condemn prejudice. The Justification and Suppression Model (JSM) argues that people will either suppress or justify their prejudice when this conflict occurs. I hypothesize that the social norms about prejudice predict which strategy people will use. I propose that people will use their religious worldview to justify prejudices that are moderately acceptable, but they will suppress less acceptable prejudices. Study 1 (n = 95) found that Christians who were given false feedback indicating high amounts of prejudice against gay men agreed with Biblical justifications of prejudice less after the feedback than before. Study 2 (n = 170) found that Christians given false feedback indicating high amounts of prejudice against highly sexually active people agreed with Biblical justifications of prejudice more than participants given low prejudice feedback. Study 3 (n = 61) showed that prejudice against highly sexually active people is more socially acceptable than prejudice against gay men. Studies 4 (n = 464) and 5 (n = 193) added to Studies 1 and 2 by including prejudice target as a between subjects factor. In Study 4, prejudice feedback did not affect support for Biblical justifications, and there was no interaction with prejudice feedback and the target group. Study 5 also found no support for the hypothesis, as there was no interaction between prejudice feedback and the target of prejudice. Study 6 (n = 183) found a positive correlation between both prejudices and Biblical justifications for those prejudices.