God and Marriage: The Impact of Religious Identity Priming on Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Marriage

Brian F. Harrison and Melissa R. Michelson

Social Science Quarterly, 2015, vol. 96, issue 5, 1411-1423

Abstract: type="main">

We hypothesize that priming a shared in-group identity can lead to openness to attitudinal change, even on highly polarized issues. Specifically, we test whether priming a shared identity as a religious person can generate willingness to voice support for same-sex marriage.

We conduct a randomized survey experiment using the SocialSci platform, exposing religious and secular respondents to religious and anonymous primes about same-sex marriage.

Individuals who are religious and who are exposed to the treatment prime are more likely to say that they support marriage equality and would vote for a ballot initiative in their state that would allow same-sex marriage.

Despite widespread opposition to marriage equality among people of faith, having that religious identity primed through an elite religious cue has a significant and often dramatic effect on attitudes toward marriage equality.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ssqu.12169 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:socsci:v:96:y:2015:i:5:p:1411-1423

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0038-4941

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science Quarterly is currently edited by Robert L. Lineberry

More articles in Social Science Quarterly from Southwestern Social Science Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().