This study aims to understand the fundamental concepts and reasons behind the emergence of religious terror activities in Indonesia, providing an 'insider' rather than an 'outsider' view. Data were collected from a total of 40 religious terror activists in Indonesia using a set of focused group discussions and interviews. The reasons they provided for their terror activities were as follows: (1) Indonesia is seen as being in a state of war (thus justifying a defensive attack); (2) Suicide bombing is believed to be noble; (3) The West (as a whole) is targeted as it is considered the invader of Muslim countries and a representative of evil; the Indonesian government is viewed as its corrupt ally.

The present study aims to understand the role of ingroup and outgroup metaprejudice in predicting prejudice and identity undermining. I predicted that ingroup metaprejudice would mediate the effect of outgroup metaprejudice on prejudice and identity undermining either on minority subgroup or minority outgroup. The results from the majority of Sunni Muslim participants (N ϭ 214) targeting Ahmadiyya (i.e., minority subgroup of Islam) and Christians (i.e., minority outgroup) showed that the effect of outgroup metaprejudice on prejudice, and identity undermining through ingroup metaprejudice, was significant. In general, the findings indicate that what group members think of what others are thinking may play a key role in influencing intergroup relations and perceptions.

The present study aims to understand when and how acts of terrorism are supported and denounced by Islamic fundamentalists in Indonesia. We predicted that the belief in establishing Islam peacefully and rationalization of violent action would moderate the Islamic fundamentalism–support for acts of terrorism relationship. The result of the research of 309 Muslim participants shows that the relationship between Islamic fundamentalism and support for terrorism acts was positively significant for Muslims holding low belief in establishing Islam peacefully and high rationalization of violent attack. However, the relationship was negatively significant at high level of belief in establishing Islam peacefully and rationalization of violent attack. The findings indicate that Islamic fundamentalism may potentially support violent as well as nonviolent acts under some certain conditions.

Samples of two hundred forty‐five majority Sunny Muslims, 87 Ahmadiyya Muslims, and 145 Christians were used to investigate the determinants and mediators of prejudice in interreligious context in Indonesia. First, the study extends the idea of in‐group and out‐group metaprejudice; both of which were found to mediate the relationship between perceived quality of intergroup relationship and personal prejudice. Second, we expected that majority members are more likely to reject a minority and that a minority is more likely to more strongly reject another minority than the majority for self‐serving reasons. Additionally, the Sunni majority will prejudice and reject the Ahmadiyya minority more than the Christian minority due to the strained religious relation between the two Muslim groups. The hypotheses were confirmed. The findings are discussed in the context of stereotyping, and prejudice dynamics in other intergroup conflicts and ways of coping with such conflict are suggested.

The present study aims to explore how narratives, stories, and memories are planted in the Jihadists' mind. In particular, the primary concern of this study is the interests of Indonesian Muslims to join Jihadist groups and their willingness to sacrifice possessions, families, and even lives. Five main informants who are members of Jihadi groups in Indonesia and 18 additional informants who have been linked with key informants participated in this study. The findings revealed the motivation of personal significance through 4 steps of radicalization. We found that the narratives of the Jihadists were an expression of the self-worth that is motivated by the need to increase the quest for significance in God's eyes. This study highlights the importance of alternatives to meaning in societies that are available and accessible by Jihadists to facilitate their reaching a self-fulfilled identity. This self-fulfillment may prevent the Jihadists from being manipulated by leaders from radical groups to perform a radical collective action. Public Significance StatementComprehensive understanding about terrorist motivation is the core of counter-terrorism programs as well as deradicalization programs. The knowledge is also instrumental in educating public about radicalism propensity.

The present study aims to understand the roles of religious fundamentalism and collective narcissism in predicting extreme behavior. It was hypothesized that religious fundamentalism may enhance collective narcissism and that this would in turn increase the tendency to endorse extreme behavior. It was also anticipated that perceptions of social tightness would moderate the indirect effect of religious fundamentalism on extreme behavior through collective narcissism.To test the hypotheses, we collected data from 788 members of Islamic religious groups in Indonesia (Male= 457, Female= 325), ages ranged from 17 to 52 (M= 25.14, SD= 8.49).Supporting the hypotheses, our findings demonstrated the validity of the expected pathways, confirming that it is important to consider the role of collective narcissism and tightnesslooseness when studying relationships between religious fundamentalism and extreme behavior.In particular, our findings demonstrate that there is a away for religious fundamentalists not to support for extreme behavior when they can have looseness culture, through which it can lower are low either in the level of collective narcissism or tightness.

The present study aims to understand the conditions where prejudice can be predicted by ingroup and outgroup meta-prejudice. The data collecting was disseminated toward Muslim and Christian participants (N = 362) living in Maumere, Flores Island, Indonesia. In Flores, Christianity is the largest religion and Islam is the second. Across two samples, the effects of ingroup and outgroup meta-prejudice on prejudice were found to be moderated by ingroup self-evaluation. It shows that at high level (but not low) of positive ingroup self-evaluation, ingroup and outgroup meta-prejudice were found to predict prejudice. The results suggest that it is important to consider how group members evaluate their own group and how group members think what others are thinking, in the study pertaining to intergroup relations.

The aim of this paper is to analyze rhetorical rejections from Muslims, a majority group, who refused a non-Muslim Chinese candidate in the 2012 Jakarta gubernatorial election. The study focuses to explore (1) the social representations of the Chinese and how it was used to attack the Chinese candidate and (2) a construction process of a “new” social representation on how a religious teaching was constructed to have nothing to do with negative sentiments or hatred. The field study focused on analyzing the sequential events related to the sermon of a prominent Islamic figure, his denial of the hate contents in his sermon, and the support he received from his Muslim supporters. The results showed that when the Chinese are negatively represented, a Chinese is considered unfit to lead Jakarta as he may disgrace the nation. Moreover, it is found that when a rhetorical rejection toward a non-Muslim is supported by a religious teaching, such rejection is considered not related to negative sentiments.