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The following is excerpted from an article published by the Religion News Service. To read the full article, click here. 

Scientific evidence for “Modar”

Okay – calling this a scientific “fact” may be stretching things…

BUT, there has been a study that gives some scientific evidence of Modar. Titled On the Perception of Religious Group Membership from Faces, researchers from the University of Toronto and Tufts University did a study to determine whether such a thing as Modar existed.

The whole study is worth a read, but here are some highlights:

  • Mormons and non-Mormons who passively observed the faces of both ingroup and outgroup members showed significantly better recognition memory for individuals belonging to their ingroup than they did for individuals belonging to their outgroup, similar to ingroup memory advantage effects commonly found for age, race and gender.
  • Images of Mormon and non-Mormon men and women were obtained from online personal advertisements posted in various major cities across the United States. Search criteria were restricted to individuals 18–30 years of age who specifically indicated either active membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or membership in another non-Mormon religious organization.
  • Special attention was paid to variation in the faces so that no obvious markers of Mormon or non-Mormon identity were present. All of the targets were Caucasian.

To read the full article on the Religion News Service, click here.Â