Religious fundamentalism as related to both antisocial and prosocial consequences

Past research on religious fundamentalism was mainly focused on its associations with problematic attitudes, such as prejudice and violence. But can religious fundamentalism be related to some prosocial attitudes as well? In our research we made a shift in the perception of religious fundamentalism and investigated how it relates to prosocial attitudes, depending on the target and specific religious context. Religious fundamentalists are authoritarian in the way they approach religious issues but we should not forget that they are also religious. As such, they not only possess characteristics typical for authoritarian persons but should also share some characteristics with religious persons. We assumed that one such important characteristic is a tendency for prosocial attitudes, at least towards some targets. Also, can prosocial attitudes of religious fundamentalists depend on exposure to specific religious contexts? We investigated how prosocial attitudes of persons scoring high on religious fundamentalism might change depending on exposure to religious texts which command prosociality vs. legitimize violence. Finally we examined real behavioral manifestations of both prosociality and prejudice: we investigated whether prosocial attitudes of religious persons assessed on the self-reported measures can translate into real prosocial behavior and whether religious persons’ prejudice can manifest as physical aggression towards traditional targets of prejudice.(PSY 3) -- UCL, 201