Term of Award

Spring 2023

Degree Name

Master of Science in Experimental Psychology (M.S.)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Psychology

Committee Chair

Michael Nielsen

Committee Member 1

Thresa Yancey

Committee Member 2

Lawrence Locker

Abstract

Asexuality is a lifelong, continuous lack of sexual attraction or the inability to feel sexual attraction. Asexuality is a naturally occurring sexual orientation thought to be present in 0.4-1.1% of the American population. However, asexuality is still relatively unknown by the general population and understudied by scientific researchers. Even less known is how religious individuals view asexuality. According to the 2020 US census, around 70% of American adults identify as Christian. The current study examined how degree of religiousness related to feelings toward sexuality and asexual individuals. Main hypotheses included: religious fundamentalism would predict negative attitudes toward asexual and transgender people; that Christians would demonstrate more bias against asexual and transgender people than would non-religious individuals; and that priming participants with positive or negative religious messages would differentially impact Christian and non-religious participants. Results confirmed the prediction regarding fundamentalism as well as the difference between Christian and non-religious biases. Results failed to support the effect of priming on attitudes toward asexual and transgender people.

OCLC Number

1439214373

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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