Rejecting Opposite Ideologies without Discriminating against Ideological Opponents? Understanding Nonbelievers’ Outgroup Attitudes

Abstract Several people fail to reject opposite ideologies without discriminating against opponents. Do nonbelievers make this distinction? Across two experiments in three cultures (total N = 2064), we investigated participants’ willingness to help a religious target involved in religious anti-liberalism (antiabortion), activism (promoting Christian ideas), or devotion (religious service); or a neutral cause (copying syllabus or visiting family). In comparison to a control condition (neutral target, neutral cause), nonbelievers–except French atheists, to some extent–made this distinction: they were unwilling to help the religious target when acting for any of the three religious causes, but not when acting for a neutral cause. Groups with opposite ideologies, here believers and nonbelievers, seem both similar and qualitatively dissimilar in their outgroup attitudes.