Pew released a report last week on a recent survey where they asked American respondents how they view various religious groups (and atheists). With the caveat that it only gives results for seven broad groups (e.g., all evangelical Christians are one group), Mormons fare the worst. Only 15% of respondents view us very or somewhat favorably, while 25% view us very or somewhat unfavorably. The difference of -10 percentage points is the worst for any of the groups, and is twice as large as for the second-worst-scoring group (Muslims, who get 17% and 22%, respectively, for a difference of -5). This is consistent with results of a similar YouGov survey published a few months ago, where Mormons weren’t the group seen least favorably, but we scored near the bottom, and mostly only beat out groups too small to be mentioned separately in the Pew report (e.g., FLDS, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Satanists).
One tidbit that I found most interesting in the report was that knowing a Mormon doesn’t improve respondents’ ratings of us. Here’s the complete breakdown from Pew, with the favorability ratings for respondents who do know someone from the group in the left graph, and those for respondents who don’t know someone from the group in the right graph.
Not surprisingly, comparing those who do know a group member to those who don’t, there is a lot less use of the middle “neither,” and “don’t know” categories (gray bars). For some groups, knowing a group member both increases the percentage viewing the group favorably (orange bars) and decreases the percentage viewing the group unfavorably (blue bars). For example, if respondents knows a Muslim, the percentage who view the group favorably is 14 percentage points higher (24% vs. 10%) and the percentage who view the group unfavorably is 3 percentage points lower (21% vs. 24%), when compared with respondents who don’t know a Muslim. This type of result seems in line with what I would have expected from something like the contact hypothesis, which suggests that contact between groups under the right conditions can reduce prejudice.
But for Mormons, the pattern is different. Like with Muslims, knowing a Mormon increases the percentage of respondents who view us favorably (up 9 percentage points from 10% to 19%), but unlike with Muslims, knowing a Mormon also increases the percentage of respondents who view us unfavorably (also up 9 percentage points, from 22% to 31%). We’re not alone in the pattern. Catholics, evangelical Christians, and Mainline Protestants also have increases in both favorable and unfavorable percentage when comparing respondents who do know versus don’t know a member of the group. However, for no other group is the increase in unfavorable anything like as large as the increase in favorable. Here’s a graph I made that shows the differences between respondents who know versus don’t know a member of the group (just a rearrangement of the Pew data in the graph above).
The gray bar on the left for each group shows the decrease in use of “neither” and “don’t know” when comparing respondents who do versus don’t know a member of the group. The green bars show the increase in percentage viewing the group favorably, and the red bars show the increase or decrease in percentage viewing the group unfavorably. What the graph makes clear is that all groups get an increase in percentage of respondents rating them favorably when they know a member of the group. Jews, Muslims, and atheists also get a corresponding decrease in respondents rating them unfavorably. As I said above, though, while Mormons aren’t unique in getting increases in both favorable and unfavorable views when respondents know us, we are unique in that these increases are the same size. (The next largest is Catholics, where the favorable increase is over twice as large as the unfavorable increase.)
A natural question to ask is what particular characteristics of Mormons they know lead respondents to rate us favorably versus unfavorably. Of course, such a question was beyond the scope of this survey. I’m guessing it would also vary dramatically depending on which respondents you asked. Evangelical Christian and more secular-leaning respondents probably dislike us for different reasons. The former might not like us because they see us as practicing a false form of Christianity, whereas the latter may not like us because we practice any form of Christianity at all. The former might not like how controlling they see the Church to be, but perhaps more that they don’t like the particular content of the rules rather than the fact of having lots of rules, whereas the latter might agree about the Church being too controlling but be more concerned with the fact of control than with the particular content of the rules. I suspect there’s also overlap. For example, I suspect we don’t endear ourselves to members of either group with our proselytizing zeal. But of course I’m totally speculating.
What do you think of the Pew results? Why might knowing a Mormon make respondents just as likely to think less of us than to think more of us?
I don’t want to be too political, but if you want my honest response, I think it’s because Mormons have enthusiastically embraced everything that’s wrong with the Republican party. I certainly don’t like or respect people who defend police brutality, regurgitate pseudoscience and conspiracy theories, and actively fight to marginalize and disenfranchise the LGBT community. The Mormon Church is really good at producing members who think drinking coffee is a bigger sin than being a bigot, and it’s made no discernible effort to correct that perception.
The other interesting thing about this poll, is that *nobody* likes. Mormons get net negative ratings from Democrats, Republicans, Evangelicals, Protestants, Jews, Atheists, and “nones”. We eke out a +2 rating from Catholics. Meanwhile, Mormons are far and away the most positive group in rating Evangelicals, Mainline Protestants, Catholics, Jews and Muslims. (We rate Atheists positively, too, but other groups rate them higher.)
Without more ways to break down the data, it’s hard to formulate theories as to why knowing us doesn’t make you like us. Maybe it has something to do with how we are dominant in some areas (Utah) and invisible in others (eastern time zone). So perhaps the only (exaggeration) people who know us are the ones that are forced to deal with lots of us, and that gets real annoying.
Apropos to this OP’s subject, yesterday’s political cartoon in the Salt Lake Tribune showed the LDS leaders looking out their window at the downtown area and wondering: What part of ” We’re the only True Church and God’s Chosen People” do unredeemed gentiles find so off-putting?
When we stop to think about how this [actually completely true re-statement of the LDS’ stated position ] objectively appears to the ‘unredeemed gentiles’, it should be obvious why we do not have a favorable public acceptance.
When the YouGov survey was released, we hashed out all the reasons people don’t like us over on another blog (I don’t remember which). It looks like that is what commenters want to do here, too–only Dave W has focused on the interesting part of why knowing us doesn’t make people like us more. His explanation feels like a stretch to me, but I am having trouble coming up with a better one. I cannot believe that we just generally treat people worse than do members of other religious groups. But perhaps people who know us feel that although we treat them well, that treatment is more conditional than the good treatment from people of other religious groups and they don’t like that. But whatever the reason behind it, the result provides some undeniable evidence that we (meaning individual members) are doing missionary work wrong.
I’m a Mormon and…
There are large numbers of Mormons I can’t stand to be around. Like Sister Dominatrix, the missionary zealot in my ward who makes me cringe every month when she approaches my non-LDS neighbors. Even if rebuffed, she comes back. There is also Bishop Freud who drove several families out of the Church by giving abusive worthiness interviews to their kids. Or Brother Amway, that right-wing nutter who annually approaches everyone with the latest MLM scheme. Then this is Brother Kitsch, our local artist, and Brother Hero, who quotes the latest General Conference talks in lessons, usually when it doesn’t apply. There is (Stake) President Obfuscation, who believes in the Handbook to the extent that he successfully extinguished his Christianity long ago.
There are also broad classes of Mormons who irritate me. I dislike those who think they are the Prophet’s best buddies if they correct every use of the word “Mormon” to “Latter-day Saint.” Those who bare their testimony in odd non-religious situations are really cringe-worthy. Mormons who pray in restaurants. Mormons who think every problem can be resolved with a scripture reference. Mormons who shop at Deseret Book and Seagull Bookstore. But I place those who try to justify Bishops not turning in child abusers into my “most detestable” category.
I can’t speak for everywhere, but in California, Prop 8 still looms really large. Most people have an LGBT friend or family member, or co-worker (raises hand) and the one thing people know about the church anymore is that they are anti-gay and not at ALL nice about it. And around here anyway, being stridently anti-LGBT is going to earn you a side-eye in any case. Any good the church thinks it, or its members, might be doing in the world is eclipsed by this issue. We might be few in number but we all have friends, and some big families. I don’t think the Brethren have figured out their “musket fire” isn’t just hitting the LGBTs.
Let’s talk politics. I can see why Democrats would view us unfavorably, considering how right-wing we are. But why don’t the Republicans like us? I suspect it’s because the GOP is dominated by the evangelical Christian right, and Evangelicals do not like Mormons. So, if we want to improve our popularity, Mormons should become Democrats.
Let’s talk politics. I can see why Democrats would view us unfavorably, considering how right-wing we are. But why don’t the Republicans like us? I suspect it’s because the GOP is dominated by the evangelical Christian right, and Evangelicals do not like Mormons. So, if we want to improve our popularity, Mormons should become Democrats.
I met both conservative evangelicals on my mission and liberal atheists in grad school, so can confirm that each group dislikes us for wildly different reasons. The wrinkle I would also like to add is that it also very much depends on what *kind* of Mormon one has contact with.
Speaking strictly anecdotally: I knew a black colleague in my PhD program, very intelligent and quick to call out racism wherever and whenever she saw it, but who warmed up to me immediately when she learned I was Mormon, despite our atrocious record on race. Why? Because a Mormon had been her favorite and most encouraging high school teacher back in Missouri. In my limited experience, whenever someone meets a Mormon educator out in the wild, whether at the K-12 or college levels, they are more likely to come away with a positive impression.
The same however cannot be said for Mormon business men. An ex-Mormon friend of mine is currently suing a moving company that grossly overcharged him, one owned by a Mormon, and whose bullying lawyers are also BYU grads; this experience has not made him regret leaving the church. When I worked a crappy summer sales job out of Rexburg, my co-workers once told me that if it hadn’t been for me, they’d have assumed *all* Mormons were crooks. Recall also that during the 2012 GOP presidential primaries, Mitt Romney was attacked by his opponents (e.g. Gingrich, Santorum) for not only being LDS, but also a heartless, lay-off happy “vulture capitalist”—even among fellow free-market conservatives, Romney’s brand of business was considered by many a bridge too far.
Part of this trend may simply be self-selection: the sort of person who chooses to go into education *generally* is more likely to be idealistic and humane than someone who chooses to go into business. But I can’t shake the feeling that these respective fields tend to amplify our best and worst tendencies, and hence heavily impacts whether someone meeting us comes away with a positive view of us or not.
It’s perfectly possible to know and like a Mormon individual, whilst still having massive issues with the institutional church. Does the survey successfully distinguish between Mormon people and the Mormon church?
The church as it currently stands isn’t an institution I would be at all happy to invite my worst enemy let alone friends and family to be a part of, even though I am an active, attending, TR holding member, and there are some lovely people in my ward, who serve others willingly.. some of whom also say things I find utterly toecurling..
So the March 15 issue of the SL Tribune podcast “Mormon Land” had BYU prof Quin Monson saying that the data from this very pew report showed the opposite- that IF people got to know a Mormon, they were more likely to respond favorably to Mormons in the survey. The Trib reporters didn’t question his interpretation of the stats.
I think you should post a link to this blog to the podcast comments.
Will getting to know a Mormon make a difference? No. Because being nice and being kind are two different things. Mormons might be nice (and they may not be- depending on who you catch), but what have we done to be kind to our neighbors? Honestly. (Hint: we may not use evidence from past generations. We can’t keep holding onto our Mormon Battalion story as evidence of our patriotism. Similarly, it’s been 78 years since our heroic humanitarian shipments into post-WWII Europe. )
Maybe service could be the key to teaching the jerks among us to be less jerky, and to actually serve our neighbors so they wouldn’t hate us so much. Maybe we turn our missionaries into humanitarian and community service volunteers. For a few generations. And really kick up our millennial mission.
Who knows. Maybe we just embrace our lot and respond with “haters gonna hate”.