Half of the students at each institution were told the passage came from ancient sea scrolls and the other half were told that the passage was from the Bible. After reading the passage, subjects were grouped into pairs and instructed to blast each other with an instrument which produces a 105 decibel sound, which purportedly, measures violence. The authors report that the students from Brigham Young who also reported a belief in the Bible were more aggressive. The authors claim that this studies demonstrates that religious people react more violently than non-religious folks. The study can be found here (but in press articles are only available to members).

One could say a lot about this study, but only a few comments will be made here. As with many social psychology studies, the samples used were college students, probably those enrolled in psychology courses where participation in such studies is expected. Social psychologists often gloss over this fact, but the cohorts used in their studies are highly skewed. College students are not representative of the general population. Additionally, the authors don't seem to explore other possibilities for the disparate results -- they assume that it's religious beliefs that separate the groups. And it very well may be, but one has to wonder about other cultural influences of these groups. Could the interpretation be more indicative of the author's beliefs? Finally, can loud sounds measure aggression? Perhaps. But reacting aggressively to a loud sound in a laboratory is very different than being aggressive in the community. Nonetheless, the authors should be commended for trying to understand the possible link between religion and aggression.

Update:

Mixing Memory has this post about other studies that have come to very different results than the current study.