Priming religious belief and religious social behavior affects support for democracy

Abstract

The effects of religious belief and religious social behavior on support for democracy are investigated in a priming experiment conducted among Turkish Muslims and Israeli Jews. By varying the question order of World Values Survey (WVS) items which measure religious belief and religious social behavior it was demonstrated that priming religious social behavior facilitates while priming religious belief impedes support for democracy compared with a control group of no prime. These results were independent of participants' intensity of religious belief or the frequency of their religious social behavior and held for the most part across both religious affiliations and political contexts. © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The World Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.