Are Atheists Unprejudiced? Forms of Nonbelief and Prejudice Toward Antiliberal and Mainstream Religious Groups

Building on the ideological-conflict hypothesis, we argue that, beyond the religion-prejudice association, there should exist an irreligion-prejudice association toward groups perceived as actively opposing the values of nonbelievers (antiliberal targets) or even as simply being ideologically different: religionists of mainstream religions. Collecting data from three secularized Western European countries (total N = 1,158), we found that, though both believers and nonbelievers disliked moral and religious antiliberals (antigay activists and fundamentalists), atheists and agnostics showed prejudicial discriminatory attitudes toward antiliberals, but also toward mere Christians, and atheists did so also toward Buddhists. Prejudice toward antiliberal and mainstream religious targets was predicted uniquely by antireligious critique, occasionally in addition to high existential quest for the antiliberal targets, but in addition to low existential quest and low belief in the world's benevolence for mainstream religionists. Future studies should determine whether the effects are similar, more pronounced, or attenuated in very religious societies.