Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Religious Priming And Moral Reasoning As A Manipulation For Supporting Violence, Brandt A. Smith

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The present research tests the effects of religious priming and cued moral reasoning on support for violence against others. Further, the present research examined the effects of two individual difference measures, Social Vigilantism and the degree to which people accept religion as a social force research demonstrates that religious priming elicits greater compliance by acting as a cognitive distraction. The data show that lower levels of moral reasoning and religious priming lead to higher activism, radicalism, and extremism scores as well as higher agreement with a recorded message. Implications and future directions are discussed.