Religious orientations, prototypicality threat, and attitudes toward church-state separation

We investigated whether stronger religious fundamentalism predicted negative attitudes toward church-state separation as a consequence of perceiving low in-group prototypicality (IGP). Across two studies (N = 635), Christians from the United States reported their religious orientations (intrinsic, extrinsic-personal, extrinsic-social, fundamentalism) before we measured (or manipulated) their perceptions of IGP. The dependent variables were attitudes toward church-state separation (S1, S2) and attitudes toward religious-national integration (S2). Results showed that stronger religious fundamentalism predicted negative attitudes toward church-state separation. Results also showed that fundamentalists' negativity toward church-state separation was stronger when Christianity was not perceived as prototypical of America's identity. Religious fundamentalism did not predict attitudes toward church-state separation when perceiving high IGP. Religious fundamentalism predicted support of religious-national integration irrespective of IGP. The results suggest that fundamentalists will oppose the separation of church and state when they perceive their religion is not prototypical of their national identity.