Does Religious Priming Induce Greater Prejudice? A Meta-Analytic Review

The current meta-analysis addressed whether theistic religious beliefs are causally related to greater prejudice by analyzing 44 studies (N_total = 11,330) that used experimental designs-priming religion and then measuring negativity toward outgroups (e.g., LGBT and Muslim). The overall priming effect was significant but small (r = .06), indicating that priming religion increases prejudice. The implications of these results for the relation between religion and prejudice and for future work on religious priming are discussed.