How Education and Metacognitive Training May Ameliorate Religious Prejudices: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Religious tensions in Western countries are growing and pose a challenge to societal peace. For the present study, we examined the attitudes of Christians, Muslims, and people with no religious affiliation toward the three major monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In the framework of a randomized controlled trial, we explored the extent to which five conditions (three metacognitive, one educational, and one control) changed participants’ attitudes toward their own faith and other faiths. In the educational condition, information was conveyed in a simple narrative form, whereas in the metacognitive conditions participants were asked seemingly simple questions that frequently elicit incorrect responses followed by the correct responses along with corrective information (either immediately or after a delay). Christian and Muslim participants appraised their own religion as tolerant. The metacognitive interventions were significantly more successful than the control condition in reducing prejudice overall. Christians improved their attitudes toward Judaism and Islam in the metacognitive conditions. Muslims, however, showed more positive appraisals of Judaism and their own religion but not of Christianity (which showed a slight but nonsignificant decline) following the intervention. We discuss the possible contribution of particular questionnaire items to the latter unexpected result. Participants evaluated the information provided by the educational intervention as less interesting relative to the metacognitive approach.