Hypocrisy and intolerance drive most religious doubt among US college students
Mar 8th 2026
A large multi-campus survey finds social complaints about hypocrisy and intolerance top the list of reasons college students doubt religion, with doubt linked to both worse mental health for highly religious students and greater openness and intellectual humility.
- Surveyed 3,953 undergraduates at three U.S. campuses: a private research university, a public state university, and a private Christian university.
- Students ranked perceived hypocrisy and intolerance toward LGBTQ people as the top reasons for doubting religion.
- Social grievances were more commonly cited than theological problems like the problem of evil or conflicts with science.
- Religious doubt was linked to greater emotional distress and lower well-being, especially for students who remained highly religious and at the Christian university.
- Students reporting doubt also showed higher quest orientation and intellectual humility, indicating more open, exploratory meaning-seeking.
- Limitations include a mostly White, Christian, cisgender female sample, older data, and use of a 1997 reasons-for-doubt checklist that omitted modern political factors.
- Study published in Psychology of Religion and Spirituality by Julie J. Exline, Yehudis Keller, Andrew C. Moffitt, Joshua A. Wilt, and Kenneth I. Pargament.