You are the real terrorist and we are just your puppet: Using individual and group factors to explain Indonesian muslims’ attributions of causes of terrorism

Abstract

The current study investigates the role of individual and intergroup factors in predicting Muslims’ tendency to attribute domestic terrorism in Indonesia to an external cause (i.e., The West) or an internal cause (i.e., radical Islamist groups). The results (N = 308) showed that intergroup factors of symbolic threat and realistic threat directly increased the external attribution and conversely decreased the internal attribution. Within the context of the current research, symbolic threat refers to Muslims’ perception that the norms and values of the West undermine Islamic identity. Realistic threat denotes Muslims’ perception that the economy and technology of the West undermine Islamic power. The individual factor of Islamic fundamentalism, which has to do with Muslims’ belief in the literal interpretation of and strict guidelines to Islamic doctrines, indirectly predicted both external attribution and internal attribution of terrorism as hypothesized, via the extent to which Muslims perceived the West as posing a symbolic threat, but not a realistic threat to Islamic existence. Uncertainty avoidance, a cultural dimension that describes the extent to which people view clear instructions as a pivotal source of concern to deal with societal problems, also significantly increased perceived symbolic threat and realistic threat, and this cultural dimension mediated the effect of Islamic fundamentalism on each of the intergroup threats. Finally, we found that the level of Islamic fundamentalism was dependent upon cognitive response, but not emotional response to mortality salience. The cognitive response to mortality salience denotes what Muslims are thinking about in coping with their own death whereas the emotional response denotes what Muslims are feeling about such issue. In particular, we found the cognitive response, but not the emotional response to mortality salience significantly gave rise to Muslims’ Islamic fundamentalism. These findings shed light on the importance of combining individual factors and group factors in explicating the dynamics of Muslims’ tendency to make attributions of causes of domestic terrorism. We discuss theoretical implications and study limitations, as well as practical actions policy makers could conduct to deal with Muslims’ Islamic fundamentalism and reduce the extent to which this particular group perceives the West as threatening their existence.

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

“…This observation suggests that Islamic fundamentalism generates Muslims' negative stereotypes of the West because of its role in promoting Muslims' perception that their group and the West clash. This argument is aligned with prior research (e.g., Mashuri, Akhrani et al, 2016) demonstrating that Muslim fundamentalists are very concerned about how the interests of the West are incongruent with those of Muslims, and this perceived conflict in turn give rises to Muslims' antagonism against the West. Implicatively, Islamic fundamentalism is not directly associated with radicalism, as evidenced in the current research in which it was the most distal predictor of aggressive tendencies.…”

“…However, the existing social-psychological research demonstrates mixed results regarding the relationship between religious fundamentalism and negative stereotypes. The two constructs have been found to be positively related (e.g., Altemeyer & Hunsberger, 1992), but they could be unrelated (e.g., Mashuri, Akhrani, & Zaduqisti, 2016) and even negatively related (e.g., Beller & Kröger, 2017).…”

“…Religious fundamentalism in this research depressed dual Abrahamic categorisation given that fundamentalists may perceive it as being incompatible or in conflict with their religious identity. Resonating with this rationale, Mashuri, Akhrani et al (2016) found among Indonesian Muslims that Islamic fundamentalism led to the perceived conflict between Islam and the West in their competition for material resources (e.g., economy, politics) or symbolic resources (e.g., value, culture). These conflict perceptions, in turn, positively predicted the degree to which Muslims negatively stereotyped Western powers as conspirators that have clandestinely engineered terrorism in Indonesia.…”

“…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).…”

“…We assessed Islamic fundamentalism with 20 items (e.g., 'Allah has given mankind a complete, unfailing guide to happiness and salvation, which must be totally followed'; 'Islam has different versions of the truth, and may be equally right in their own way [R]'; α = 0.64), which were adopted from Mashuri, Akhrani et al (2016). This scale was originally adapted from Altemeyer and Hunsberger (1992).…”