What does God look like? Psychologists at a US university asked this question of 511 Christian Americans and used the results to compile a composite image of God which they say shows a “younger, more feminine, and less Caucasian” person than popular culture suggests.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, involved presenting the Christians with hundreds of pairs of randomly varying faces and then selecting the face they thought appeared closest to what they imagine God looks like. The findings were then used to build a composite image.
The resulting image of what God looks like. PICTURE: UNC-Chapel Hill
The results found that, rather than the view of God as an “old and august white-bearded Caucasian man”, many Christians saw God as “younger, more feminine, and less Caucasian”.
The researchers found that people’s perceptions of God tended to rely partly on their political affilation with liberals tending to see God as more feminine, younger and more loving than conservatives.
Joshua Conrad Jackson, the study’s lead author, said the biases “might have stemmed from the type of societies that liberals and conservatives want”.
“Past research shows that conservatives are more motivated than liberals to live in a well-ordered society, one that would be best regulated by a powerful God,” he said. “On the other hand, liberals are more motivated to live in a tolerant society, which would be better regulated by a loving God.”
People’s preferences were also found to relate to their own demographic characteristics with younger people believing in a younger-looking God, people who reported being more physically attractive believing in a more physically attractive God, and African Americans believing in a God that looked more African American.
Professor Kurt Gray, the study’s senior author and a psychology professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, said people’s tendency to “believe in a God that looks like them is consistent with an egocentric bias”.
“People often project their beliefs and traits onto others, and our study shows that God’s appearance is no different – people believe in a God who not only thinks like them, but also looks like them.”
The study’s findings were published in the journal PLOS ONE.
