What Do We Think About Muslims? The Validity of Westerners' Implicit Theories About the Associations Between Muslims' Religiosity, Religious Identity, Aggression Potential, and Attitudes Toward Terrorism

Abstract

In a series of three studies, we investigated the validity of implicit theories that the German public holds regarding Muslims. German participants expected Muslims to be more aggressive than Christians, and therefore be more supportive of terrorism than Christians. Furthermore, Muslims were assumed to be more intrinsically religious and to hold a stronger identity with their religion than Christians (Study 1). However, self-assessment surveys of Muslims and Christians in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS: ex-Soviet Union) revealed that Muslims were not more aggressive, more intrinsically religious, or more supportive of terrorism than Christians. In contrast, Muslims reported a stronger religious identification than Christians (Study 2). Correspondingly, threat to religious identity was found to affect only Muslims', but not Christians', attitudes toward terrorism conducted by outgroup perpetrators. In contrast to Germans' implicit theories regarding Muslims, it was the importance of religious identity and not increased aggression potential that mediated this effect (Study 3).

Islamist terrorism as identity threat: the case of ambivalent identification and self‐stereotyping among Turkish Muslims

“…In the aftermath of two decades of Islamist terrorism (starting with the first World Trade Center bombing of 1993), Westerners are often highly skeptical of Muslims and consider them to be accepting of terrorism (Fischer, Greitemeyer, & Kastenmüller, ; Raiya, Pargament, Mahoney, & Trevino, ; Strabac & Listhaug, ). Rather than allowing the imagination to run wild, the present finding provide a better standing of how Muslims respond to terrorism committed in the name of Islam.…”

Terrorism as Collective Communication: The Collective Communication Model of Terrorism (CCMT)

“…In another related piece of research, we also manipulated perceived sender (terrorist) attributes and recorded receiver (potential victim) responses on a more cognitive, attitudinal level (Fischer, Greitemeyer, & Kastenmüller, 2007a). Concretely, the perceived religion of terrorists was manipulated.…”

“…It was found that Muslims who read about a Christian‐caused attack against their own ingroup assessed this attack as less justified as when they read about a Muslim‐caused attack against their ingroup. This effect was mediated by religious identification; that is, information that the terrorist attack has been conducted by a religious outgroup increased religious identification within the own religious group, which in turn led to the perception that the terrorist attack was less justified (see Fischer et al., 2007a). Taken together, both studies show that the reaction to terrorism depends significantly upon the attributes of the perpetrator (which are not necessarily directly related to the attributes of the attack).…”

“…This effect was also observed in actual parenting behavior in a parent–child playing interaction (Study 3). In sum, terror threat has been found to affect a variety of interpersonal and collective‐oriented processes, with these responses often being moderated by receivers’ pre‐existing traits (Fischer et al., 2006) or situational contexts (Fischer et al., forthcoming a), and possibly even leading to substantial changes in receiver attributes (Fischer et al., 2007a, forthcoming b).…”

“…How does it affect a society’s support for terrorism or counter‐terrorism? For example, we know that increased terror salience also leads to harsher punishment of norm violators within the in‐group (Fischer et al., 2007a) as well as to more authoritarian responses toward one’s own children (Fischer et al., forthcoming b). More empirical research is needed to answer these questions and prevent unwanted effects of terror salience in our society.…”