사회적 혐오의 조절 변인으로서 종교적 규범 : 의심의 실증적 단서

This study is aimed at investigating whether religious norms or secular norms act as a moderating variable for social prejudice from an evolutionary cognitive perspective, with the goal of gaining insights to help understand and overcome social prejudice. The research involved Korean Protestant, Buddhist, and Catholic believers, examining whether their levels of social prejudice were moderated by their religious beliefs. This study also compared prejudice levels when secular norms were activated. A nonparametric analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to compare the three groups. The results indicated that neither religious nor secular norms functioned as a moderating variable for social prejudice. Specifically, the priming of these norms did not significantly moderate social prejudice across all three religions, failing to reject the null hypothesis. Furthermore, the priming effects within each group showed very low effect sizes (Cohen's d). These findings are consistent with previous research conducted on East Asian populations and align with recent studies in Korean society, which found that both religious and secular priming did not elicit prosocial behavior. Consequently, the hypothesis regarding the evolution of Western religions, based on the premise of supernatural watchers, may not exhibit a cross-cultural universality. Additionally, the cognitive and adaptive aspects of religion could have evolved separately. More refined comparative religious studies that differentiate these aspects within an evolutionary anthropological framework are needed.