Is it the Doubt?: Exploring Differences in Belief, Minority Stress, and Mental Health Amongst Demographically Diverse Agnostics and Atheists

With a demographically diverse sample of nonbelievers from the U.S. we explored differences in identity-related variables, social stressors and supports, and mental health variables between self-proclaimed agnostics (n = 185) and atheists (n = 438). Our recruitment efforts intentionally promoted inclusion of nonbelievers who were also People of Color (PoC) and/or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning (LGBTQ+). A multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted with agnostic and atheist participants to assess differences across the variables of interests. As expected, agnostic participants reported significantly lower salience of nonbelief (d = 0.49) and greater importance of spirituality (d = 0.53), religious service attendance (d = 0.20), prayer frequency (d = 0.39), New Age beliefs (d = 0.30), and illusory beliefs (d = 0.49) than atheist participants. Agnostic participants were also 64% less likely to be involved in secular communities. The groups did not differ significantly on discrimination, stigma consciousness, identity concealment, or identity disclosure, but agnostic participants reported greater internalized stigma (d = 0.24) and perceptions of Christian privilege (d = 0.16). Contrary to prior research, the groups also did not differ on mental health outcomes (i.e. intolerance of uncertainty, loneliness, depression, or life satisfaction). In addition, there were no associations between PoC status, LGBTQ+ status, and their interaction with identification as agnostic vs. atheist. These findings highlight the importance of attending to demographic factors such as race/ethnicity and sexual identity in research with secular populations, as outcomes commonly captured with more homogenous samples may vary with a more diverse sample.