Outlooks on the godless : attitudes towards atheists among students at the University of Malta

Abstract

Atheists are a particular subset of the population who do not believe in the existence of god and prejudice towards them abounds. The present research studied the attitudes of University of Malta students towards atheists. Participants came from different faculties and included 76 undergraduate students – mostly female (n = 53) – with a mean age of 24.36 years. A quantitative methodology was employed and data was collected using an online survey which assessed for demographics, post-critical beliefs, religious fundamentalism, right-wing authoritarianism, negative attitudes towards atheists, belief in god and religious affiliation. Bivariate statistics showed relationships between several variables and negative attitudes towards atheists. Furthermore, belief in god accounted for the effects of religious affiliation on attitudes towards atheists and this was taken as evidence for the evolutionary role of supernatural monitoring concerns in anti-atheist prejudice. However, ANCOVA ultimately revealed that only religious fundamentalism and right-wing authoritarianism correlate significantly with anti-atheist prejudice. The results point to the significance of individual difference variables over labelling effects in anti-atheist prejudice, contrasting with previous research. The local implications of these findings are discussed.