Avoiding cultural contamination: Intergroup disgust sensitivity and religious identification as predictors of interfaith threat, faith-based policies, and islamophobia

In three samples of Christian undergraduate students (n = 43, n = 115, n = 73), we investigated the relative influence of Christian religious identification and intergroup disgust sensitivity (ITG-DS; an affect-laden individual difference variable reflecting reactivity to disgust and revulsion reactions toward outgroups) on several religious variables: Perceived threat of religious outgroups, attitudes toward faith-based schooling, intercultural child adoption, banning of religious symbols, and Islamophobia. Results revealed that religious identification and ITG-DS are both relevant to interfaith prejudices, but in different ways. With respect to unique predictive effects, ITG-DS emerged as the stronger and more consistent predictor. Meta-analytic integration confirmed that ITG-DS, but not religious identification, robustly predicts Islamophobia. Implications for understanding correlates of religious outgroup prejudices are considered.