A paper published Thursday in the International Journal for the Psychology of Religion reports that survey respondents were more likely to express conservative viewpoints, distrust of a variety of ethnic and socioeconomic groups, and profess a belief in God when standing in front of a church.
“Several studies have demonstrated that behavior is affected by external stimuli,” said Jordan LaBouff, the University of Maine professor of psychology who headed the study. “This is the first test of religious stimuli on politics.”
Standing in front of a church, 54 percent of people expressed a certain belief in God. In front of a civic building that number was only 42 percent. The remainder in both instances indicated they were atheist or agnostic. But the shift in answers was not limited to God. Outside a church, survey takers identified themselves as more than 10 percentage points more conservative.
Perhaps most surprisingly of all, survey takers near a church expressed more negative views towards ethnic groups (such as “foreigners,” “Asian” and “African”), people of socio-economic extremes (“rich,” “poor”), “gay men” and “lesbian women” and non-Christian religious groups (“Jewish,” “Muslim”).