Religious Fundamentalism, Motivation, and Empathy Towards Sexual Minorities

In the United States, political and social opposition to sexual minorities is often associated with high religiosity — in particular, Christianity (Bjork-James, 2019; Toorn et al, 2017; Westwood, 2022). However, the relationship between religiosity and prejudice is complex, with religiosity being both positively and negatively associated with prejudice towards marginalized groups (Laythe et al., 2002; Liht et al., 2011). One aspect of religiosity that is correlated with prejudice against LGBTQ+ individuals is religious fundamentalism (Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992; Fisher et al., 2017; Laythe et al., 2002). Religious internalization, a related concept, assesses the degree to which an individual ‘adopts’ an external regulation as their own (Ryan et al., 1993). A previous pilot test by this author showed that religious identification (a form of religious internalization), but not religious fundamentalism, was correlated with higher empathy scores towards sexual minorities. This research project utilizes a within-subjects experimental design to interrogate the moderating effect of religious identification on religious fundamentalism and empathy towards sexual minorities.