Microaggressions Against Atheists Measured

, Malcolm A. Kline, Leave a comment

Who says academics don’t do anything quantifiable? “Three researchers recently created a psychological survey to help therapists gauge how often atheist clients may suffer from microaggressions,” Toni Airaksinen writes on the Campus Reform blog maintained by The Leadership Institute.”The Microaggressions Against Non-Religious Individuals Scale (MANIRS) was created by researchers Louis Pagano, Azim Shariff, and Zhen Cheng, and published for the first time last week in a journal run by the American Psychological Association.”

“According to the MANIRS scale, there are 31 microaggressions that are unique to atheists, many of which involve incidents during which an atheist is accidently assumed to be religious, or when an atheist overhears stereotypes.
Examples of microaggressions the MANIRS assesses include: ‘Others have assumed that I am religious,’ ‘Others have acted surprised that I do not believe in God,’ and ‘Others have included a blessing or prayer in a public social gathering.'”