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

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 interreligious 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 v 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 interreligious 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.