The Impact of Religious Bias on Mental Health and Academic Performance: Implications for Diversity in Academia and Science Fields

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dc.contributor.advisorShariff, Azim
dc.contributor.authorCheng, Zhen
dc.date.accessioned2019-01-11T23:17:22Z
dc.date.issued2019-01-11
dc.description.abstractScience thrives when there is a continuous flow of new ideas and diverse generations of scholars contributing to the field. Although academic institutions aim to encourage diverse viewpoints, a culture of atheism among university faculties may unwittingly be contributing to an anti-religious atmosphere. The main focus of this dissertation is to investigate people’s attitudes toward religious individuals, and how these attitudes affect the religious believers’ mental health and academic performance. Study 1 (N = 899) found that people tend to explicitly report that religious believers have lower intelligence, but to implicitly associate them with higher intelligence. Although this is the case, faculty members, particularly those from secular institutions, did not have this implicit association and had the strongest congruity between their explicit and implicit intelligence preferences. Studies 2-3 showed that religious believers of diverse backgrounds reported experiencing overt and covert forms of religious bias, including biases related to their academic ability. Religious believers reported that they encountered more incidences of overt and covert forms of religious bias inside of higher education than outside of academia. Experiences of religious microaggressions significantly predicted higher rates of depression in Study 2 (N = 383) and marginally in Study 3 (N = 129). Finally, Study 4 (N = 169) found that compared to other religious groups, Christians were stereotyped to lack science competency. Study 5 (N = 237) demonstrated that these stereotypes applied to Christian college students and was at a comparable rate to how women are stereotyped to lack scientific competency and interest. Study 6 (N = 93) demonstrated that these negative stereotypes cause Christian college students to become less interested in and identify less with sciences. They also caused Christian college students to underperform on science-relevant tasks, especially those students with a stronger religious identity (Study 7; N = 90). These studies reveal that stereotypes play a key role in pushing religious believers out of science. Implications and future directions in the representation of religious believers in academia and science fields are discussed. This dissertation includes previously published and unpublished co-authored material.en_US
dc.description.embargo2021-01-11
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1794/24225
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of Oregon
dc.rightsAll Rights Reserved.
dc.subjectAcademiaen_US
dc.subjectBiasen_US
dc.subjectPsychologyen_US
dc.subjectReligionen_US
dc.subjectScienceen_US
dc.subjectStereotype threaten_US
dc.titleThe Impact of Religious Bias on Mental Health and Academic Performance: Implications for Diversity in Academia and Science Fields
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
thesis.degree.disciplineDepartment of Psychology
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Oregon
thesis.degree.leveldoctoral
thesis.degree.namePh.D.

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