Inter-Religious Prejudice in Context: Prejudice against Black Persons, Homosexuals and Women, and the Role of the Violence Legitimizing Norms of Masculinity

Abstract

As previous research on Group-Focused Enmity in Europe has shown, different types of prejudice share a common factor: a general ideology of inequality. But how do different types of prejudice differ? Which factor has the strongest effects on a certain prejudice? Which types of prejudice are effectively predicted by religiosity? Does it make a difference whether the target of prejudice is another religious tradition or another, not religiously marked group? By including a variety of measures for religiosity, for prejudice, and for other constructs into the questionnaire, the Bielefeld Study on Xenosophia and Religion can provide answers to these questions. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the effects of Centrality of Religiosity, of Openness to Change, of Violence Legitimizing Norms of Masculinity, and of religious schemata measured with the Religious Schema Scale (RSS) on six different types of prejudice: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, general racism, anti-black racism, sexism, and homophobia. Two results are especially noteworthy: First, the violence legitimizing norms of masculinity emerge as the strongest predictor for almost all types of prejudice. Second, religiosity as measured with the Centrality of Religiosity scale has also strong effects on the six types of prejudice – but primarily when differentially mediated by the three religious schemata ttt, ftr and xenos.