In an article posted by the American PsychologicalAssociation, a recent study finds that people were more likely to trust gays than atheists. 351 randomly selected Americans were asked to rate how they feel about three groups: gays, atheists, and people in general, on a scale from 1-100. The study says that people rated that they “liked” gay men more than atheist. However, they also reported that gay men were more “disgusting” than atheists.
Additional studies had students from a liberal arts college read a story about “Richard”, a man that leaves the scene of an accident and then steals a wallet. Participants were then asked to rate which was more likely: that Richard was a teacher or that Richard was a teacher and an atheist. While statistically, there would be a greater chance for Richard to be just a teacher, students tended to attribute his morally inappropriate behavior to him probably being an atheist.
Also according to the article participants report that they would likely hire an atheist to perform service jobs, but they would be less likely to hire an atheist for a job at a day care.
These studies aren’t really surprising. People in general have distrusting attitudes to anything that they are unfamiliar with. Religion in social worker and mental health is a tricky subject. Being able to work within the scope of a client’s religion and beliefs is one thing, when they try to dig into yours is quite a different beast.
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