The Role of Identity Subversion in Structuring the Effects of Intergroup Threats and Negative Emotions on Belief in Anti-West Conspiracy Theories in Indonesia

Abstract

Indonesian Muslims believe in conspiracies, suggesting that the West is behind terrorist attacks in Indonesia. This belief persists despite overwhelming evidence that Islamist radicals were the true perpetrators. The current research examines the role intergroup threats and negative emotions have in moulding this type of conspiratorial belief, and how this role is dependent upon the level of Muslims’ perceived identity subversion, that is, a sense that the Western ways of life have fundamentally changed Islamic identity. Data from 246 Indonesian Muslim students revealed that negative emotions of dejection-agitation towards Western ways of life significantly mediated the effects of both symbolic and realistic threats on belief in anti-West conspiracy theories. The effects of intergroup threats and dejection-agitation on belief in conspiracy theories, as predicted, were contingent on Muslim participants’ perceived identity subversion. Higher symbolic threat, realistic threat and dejection-agitation, indeed, positively predicted the belief, but only when the degree of identity subversion was high. Identity subversion moderated the roles of dejection-agitation in mediating the effect of symbolic and realistic threats in predicting belief in conspiracy theories. More specifically, the empirical evidence of these mediating roles of dejection-agitation was only among Muslim participants with high identity subversion. Finally, theoretical implications and study limitations of the current findings were discussed.

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Psychological Research on Conspiracy Beliefs: Field Characteristics, Measurement Instruments, and Associations With Personality Traits

“…The literature on conspiracy beliefs has focused extensively on the United States and Europe, as nearly 80% of all studies were conducted on those two continents. Only four studies included exclusively non-western societies (Swami, 2012; Mashuri and Zaduqisti, 2015; Putra et al, 2015; Mashuri et al, 2016). Participants were recruited online (39.8%) or via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk; 15.7%) with the remaining 44.6% being recruited in offline, face-to-face settings.…”

Why are conspiracy theories more successful in some countries than in others? An exploratory study on Internet users from 22 Western and non-Western countries

“…Other studies point out that the popularity of certain conspiracy theories varies from country to country depending on cultural and geopolitical factors (e.g., Mashuri, Zaduqisti, Sukmawati, et al, 2016;Swami, 2012). For example, a case study in Indonesia shows that ' [...] Muslims believe in anti-West conspiracy theories because they perceive the West as posing a symbolic and realistic threat to Muslims' group entity' (Mashuri et al, 2016: 2).…”

Explaining Muslims’ Aggressive Tendencies Towards the West: The Role of Negative Stereotypes, Anger, Perceived Conflict and Islamic Fundamentalism

“…The term 'the West' in the current research was operationalised, with reference to prior studies conducted in Indonesia (i.e., Mashuri, Akhrani et al, 2016;Mashuri, Zaduqisti, Sukmawati, Sakdiah, & Suharini, 2016), as the USA along with Israel and Western European countries supposed to be its allies. The USA and Israel were selected on the top of the list, due to some Indonesian Muslims' tendency to judge the two countries as international powers that continuously threaten the interests of Islamic worlds, more especially Palestine (Khisbiyah, 2009).…”