Running head : ATHEISTS ARE VISUALIZED AS UNTRUSTWORTHY 1 Atheists are Visualized as Untrustworthy

Previous research has found that atheists experience anti-atheist prejudice, which appears to be marked by a lack of trust. However, it is not known whether this prejudice manifests itself in terms of mental images of atheists, especially since atheists lack visual characteristics, they form a non-cohesive group, and their practices are not easily defined. Using a reverse correlation task (RC task), participants viewed pairs of faces that differed in noise superimposed on a base face. Participants chose which face looked more like an atheist. Each participant’s chosen and nonchosen faces were averaged to create a composite “atheist” and “non-atheist” image, respectively. Independent raters rated the images on trustworthiness. In two separate studies, participants’ mental images of atheists were rated as less trustworthy-looking than their mental images of non-atheists. When the task was reversed and participants were asked to choose the face that looked more like someone who believes in God and/or other deities, we found similar results; participants’ mental images of non-religious individuals were rated as less trustworthylooking than their mental images of religious individuals. Together, these results suggest that atheists may be visualized as untrustworthy. Furthermore, mental images of a group may be formed even when the group lacks salient visual characteristics. ATHEISTS ARE VISUALIZED AS UNTRUSTWORTHY 5 Atheists Are Visualized as Untrustworthy In June, 2015, as the presidential race was underway, a Gallup poll asked respondents whether they would vote for a president if he/she were of various identities. Far fewer said they would vote for an atheist (58%) than a Jewish, Hispanic, Black, female, or Catholic president (≥91% for each) (McCarthy, 2015). Other studies have supported these results by finding that atheists experience anti-atheist prejudice (Cook, Webster, & Cottrell, 2014; Gervais, 2014; Hammer, Cragun, Hwang, & Smith, 2012; Swan & Heesacker, 2012). In three studies, we sought to add to this literature by examining participants’ mental images of atheists, defined here as those who do not believe in God and/or other deities. Given that atheists form a relatively inconspicuous group that may lack group cohesiveness (Hayward, Krause, Ironson, Hill, & Emmons, 2016), and given that researchers have had difficulties condensing atheists’ practices and values into one definition (Brewster, Robinson, Sandil, Esposito, & Geiger, 2014), it is uncertain whether people have similar mental images of atheists, or whether these mental images are idiosyncratic. If they do have a systematic stereotypical image of atheists, this would suggest that mental images can be formed for a group even if the group’s characteristics are not salient. Each of our studies used the reverse correlation task (RC task) to assess mental images of atheists. In the RC task, participants are presented with two faces over many trials. They are asked to choose which face fits a certain criterion, such as which face appears more like an atheist. The faces chosen by each participant are averaged together to create an overall classification image (CI) of the group, and the non-chosen images are averaged to create a CI for the non-chosen group. Independent raters then rate each participant’s images on a certain criterion, such as trustworthiness (Dotsch, Wigboldus, Langner, & van Knippenberg, 2008; ATHEISTS ARE VISUALIZED AS UNTRUSTWORTHY 6 Dotsch, Wigboldus, & van Knippenberg, 2012; Dunham, Srinivasan, Dotsch, & Barner, 2013; Imhoff, Dotsch, Bianchi, Banse, & Wigboldus, 2011). This procedure has been used to assess prejudice toward various groups, such as Moroccans by Dutch participants (Dotsch et al., 2008) and Europeans and Australians by Portuguese and German participants (Imhoff et al., 2011). It has also been used to examine mental images of individuals. In Young, Ratner, and Fazio (2013), mental images of Mitt Romney differed by participants’ political beliefs, with the mental images appearing more positive looking for supporters than non-supporters. However, unlike mental images of atheists, mental images of Moroccans, Europeans, Australians, and Mitt Romney may be marked by certain appearance-based stereotypes, such as the assumption that Mitt Romney tends to have more negative or positive emotional expressions. Other studies have gone on to use the RC task to assess mental images of groups not marked by appearance-based differences. For example, Dotsch et al. (2012) found that the same task resulted in different mental images of a group based on written, not visual, descriptions of the group. That is, participants given trustworthy or criminal descriptions of certain faces exhibited mental images of the faces that were in line with the descriptions. Similarly, in Dunham et al. (2013), Indian Muslim and Indian Hindu children exhibited ingroup preferences for their respective groups when completing the same RC task. That is, for the Muslim children, their mental images of Muslims were rated more positively than their mental images of Hindus. The reverse occurred for the Hindu children; their mental images of Hindus were rated more positively than their mental images of Muslims. Given that Indian Muslims and Hindus are not marked by visual differences (Dunham et al., 2013), this suggests that people may exhibit certain ATHEISTS ARE VISUALIZED AS UNTRUSTWORTHY 7 mental images of a religious group even when that group’s characteristics are not visually defined. We wondered whether these findings would carry over to mental images of atheists. In addition to participants’ mental images of atheists, we were interested in whether atheists would demonstrate ingroup preferences such that their mental images of atheists would appear more trustworthy-looking on the RC task than their mental images of non-atheists. Based on the literature about ingroup and outgroup religious preferences, atheists may not show an ingroup preference. Similar to the findings in Dunham et al. (2013) about Hindu and Muslim children, Christian children and adults within the United States appear to exhibit implicit ingroup preferences (Heiphetz, Spelke, & Banaji, 2013; Rowatt, Franklin, & Cotton, 2005). However, Brenick and Killen (2014) found that although Jewish adolescents within the United States demonstrated an overall ingroup preference, this differed by several identity-based factors, and ingroup bias was defined based on explicit exclusion of Arab peers from various contexts. These mixed findings about ingroup preferences suggest that atheists may or may not experience ingroup preferences. In three studies, we sought to examine mental images of atheists and ingroup preferences among atheists. Using an RC task and a questionnaire in our first study, we hypothesized that participants with more positive explicit attitudes about atheists, a lack of religious beliefs, and less frequent engagement in religious or spiritual practices would exhibit more trustworthylooking mental images of atheists compared to non-atheists. In our second study, we expected to find the same results when reversing the RC task and assessing participants’ mental images of religious and non-religious individuals, as opposed to atheists and non-atheists. That is, we predicted that participants with more positive explicit attitudes about atheists, a lack of religious beliefs, and less frequent engagement in religious and spiritual practices would exhibit more ATHEISTS ARE VISUALIZED AS UNTRUSTWORTHY 8 trustworthy-looking mental images of non-religious individuals compared to religious individuals. In our third study, which replicated the design of the first but added an Implicit Association Test (IAT), we hypothesized that we would find the same results as in the first study, and that implicit in addition to explicit attitudes would be associated with participants’ mental images of atheists versus non-atheists. For all three studies, we predicted that atheists would demonstrate an ingroup preference such that their mental images of atheists (non-religious individuals) would be rated as more trustworthy-looking than their mental images of non-atheists (religious individuals). Study 1 Anti-atheist prejudice appears to be expressed by distrust. Gervais, Shariff, & Norenzayan (2011) theorized that it is difficult to determine the morality of atheists because their behaviors are not defined by set religious practices or values. Therefore, hypothetically, it would be more difficult to trust an atheist because one would not necessarily know whether or by what values the atheist chooses to live. Similarly, if people are religious, they may behave in a more moral or trustworthy manner due to fear of retribution from a god or gods, whereas an atheist would not have this fear. Additional evidence supports such findings about distrust of atheists and their presumed lack of morality. Tan and Vogel (2008) found that German subjects playing an economic game tended to entrust their money with more religious strangers, especially if the participants themselves were religious. In Mudd, Najle, Ng, and Gervais (2015), even after reading scientific results depicting morality as innate and not learned, participants still viewed Christians as more moral than atheists. ATHEISTS ARE VISUALIZED AS UNTRUSTWORTHY 9 Due to these findings about distrust-related prejudice toward atheists, we chose to examine the trustworthiness of participants’ mental images of atheists versus non-atheists by employing an RC task. Participants first completed this RC task, and then they were given a questionnaire assessing their explicit attitudes about atheists, their religious beliefs, and their engagement in religious or spiritual practices. In the second stage of the study, an independent group of participants rated the apparent trustworthiness of participants’ mental images of atheists and non-atheists. With these ratings, we were