Where,O death,is thy sting? The meaning-providing function of beliefs in literal immortality

Terror management theory suggests that humans invest in cultural worldviews that allay mortality-related anxiety by promising death transcendence. Many religious individuals adhere to belief in literal immortality – believing that one will live on after death. Across two studies (n?=?1137), we explored the terror management function of such beliefs by exploring whether these beliefs are associated with lower death anxiety and greater meaning among individuals of varying religiousness. In both Study 1 (n?=?236) and Study 2 (n?=?901), belief in literal immortality was related to lower death anxiety only among intrinsically religious participants. Moreover, meaning in life mediated the relationship between belief in literal immortality and death anxiety. Study 2 clarified that this mediational relationship was only present for intrinsically religious individuals. We discuss the importance of particular religious beliefs in the provision of meaning in order to manage existential concerns.     

Hopelessly mortal: The role of mortality salience,immortality and trait self-esteem in personal hope

Do people lose hope when thinking about death? Based on Terror Management Theory, we predicted that thoughts of death (i.e., mortality salience) would reduce personal hope for people low, but not high, in self-esteem, and that this reduction in hope would be ameliorated by promises of immortality. In Studies 1 and 2, mortality salience reduced personal hope for people low in self-esteem, but not for people high in self-esteem. In Study 3, mortality salience reduced hope for people low in self-esteem when they read an argument that there is no afterlife, but not when they read “evidence” supporting life after death. In Study 4, this effect was replicated with an essay affirming scientific medical advances that promise immortality. Together, these findings uniquely demonstrate that thoughts of mortality interact with trait self-esteem to cause changes in personal hope, and that literal immortality beliefs can aid psychological adjustment when thinking about death. Implications for understanding personal hope, trait self-esteem, afterlife beliefs and terror management are discussed.     

Living under threat: Mutual threat perception drives anti‐Muslim and anti‐Western hostility in the age of terrorism

This research demonstrates a common psychology of outgroup hostility driven by perceived intergroup threat among three groups and seven cultural contexts: non‐Muslim Westerners, Muslims in Western societies, and Muslims in the Middle East. In Study 1, symbolic, but not realistic and terroristic threats, predicted non‐Muslim Norwegians' intentions to join anti‐Islamic movements. In Study 2, symbolic and realistic, but not terroristic threat, predicted non‐Muslim Americans' willingness to persecute Muslims. In Studies 3 and 4, symbolic threat predicted support and behavioral intentions against the West among Swedish and Turkish Muslims. Finally, in Study 5, a comparison demonstrated that symbolic and realistic threats had the same effects on violent intentions among non‐Muslim and Muslim Danes, and Muslims in Afghanistan. Meta‐analysis showed that symbolic threat was most strongly associated with intergroup hostility. Across studies, participants with high religious group identification experienced higher levels of threat. Implications for intergroup research and prejudice reduction are discussed.     

A new threat in the air: Macroeconomic threat increases prejudice against Asian Americans

Macroeconomic conditions have long been suspected of increasing hostility toward ethnic outgroups. Integrating prior work on macroeconomic threat with recent threat-based models of prejudice, the current work employs an experimental approach to examine the implications of economic threat for prejudice toward ethnic outgroups. In Study 1, participants primed with an economic threat (relative to a non-economic threat and neutral topic) reported more prejudice against Asian Americans, an ethnic group whose stereotype implies a threat to scarce employment opportunities. In addition, economic threat led to a heightened state of anxiety, which mediated the influence of economic threat on prejudice against Asian Americans. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings by demonstrating that economic threat heightened prejudice against Asian Americans, but not Black Americans, an ethnic group whose stereotype does not imply a threat to economic resources. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the role of macroeconomic conditions in potentiating antisocial responses to particular outgroups.     

Primoratz on Terrorism

ABSTRACT In ‘What is Terrorism?’ Igor Primoratz defines terrorism as “the deliberate use of violence, or the threat of its use, against innocent people, with the aim of intimidating them, or other people, into a course of action they would not otherwise take”. In this article I argue that Primoratz is wrong (a) to posit a necessary connection between terrorism and terror or intimidation, (b) to argue that terrorism is directed solely against people, and not, for example, property, and (c) to argue that the targets of terrorism proper are ‘the innocent’.     

Paranoia predicts out-group prejudice: preliminary experimental data

This article examines the relationships between exposure to terrorism news and state social paranoia, death anxiety and Islamophobia. In two experiments we show that, contrary to previous research in this area, the terrorism news condition did not significantly increase state social paranoia, death anxiety and prejudice towards Muslims, but that paranoid thinking was the sole predictor of Islamophobia. Trait paranoia is associated with both poor well-being and with negative perceptions of Muslim competitive players – a form of inter-relational prejudice. Results indicated that the frequency of paranoid thoughts mediates the relationship between death anxiety and anti-Muslim prejudice and trait paranoia is the main predictor of the negative perceptions of a Muslim competing player. This study elucidates new pathways to understanding terror management theory, by including paranoia as a type of thinking that predisposes individuals to be suspicious of salient out-groups.     

Support for Anti‐Muslim Policies: The Role of Political Traits and Threat Perception

We explored how political beliefs and attitudes predict support for anti‐Muslim policies and extremist behavior in the United States following the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks. A large sample completed measures of authoritarianism, social dominance orientation (SDO), generalized prejudice, identification with all humanity (IWAH), perceptions of Muslim threat, and support for anti‐Muslim policies and behaviors. These measures accounted for 73% of the variance in moderate anti‐Muslim policies and 55% of the variance in extreme anti‐Muslim policies. Authoritarianism and SDO directly and indirectly predicted support for anti‐Muslim policies, with their effects partially mediated by generalized prejudice, IWAH, and perceptions of Muslims as threatening. Threat both mediated and moderated the relationship between authoritarianism and anti‐Muslim policies. A negative interaction between authoritarianism and perceptions of Muslims as threatening predicted moderate anti‐Muslim policies, but a positive interaction predicted extreme anti‐Muslim policies. A tentative explanation is offered. Perceptions of Muslim threat was consistently a powerful predictor of anti‐Muslim policies and willingness to engage in extremist behaviors targeting Muslims. Programs to combat anti‐Muslim prejudice should consider the role of threat‐related stereotypes in expressions of anti‐Muslim prejudice.     

How terrorism news reports increase prejudice against outgroups: A terror management account

Three studies tested predictions derived from terror management theory (TMT) about the effects of terrorism news on prejudice. Exposure to terrorism news should confront receivers with thoughts about their own death, which, in turn, should increase prejudice toward outgroup members. Non-Muslim (Studies 1-3) and Muslim (Study 3) participants were exposed to news about either Islamic terrorist acts or to control news. When Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam by an Islamic extremist during data collection of Study 1, this event was included as a naturally occurring factor in the design. Consistent with TMT, terrorism news and Van Gogh’s murder increased death-related thoughts. Death-related thoughts, in turn, increased prejudiced attitudes toward outgroup members, especially when participants had low self-esteem, and when terrorism was psychologically close. Terrorism news may inadvertently increase prejudiced attitudes towards outgroups when it reminds viewers of their own mortality.     

Will we be harmed,will it be severe,can we protect ourselves? Threat appraisals predict collective angst (and its consequences)

Across four studies, we applied the cognitive model of anxiety to explicate the appraisals that elicit collective angst (i.e., concern for the in‐group's future vitality). In Study 1a, consistent with the model, Québécois experienced collective angst when they appraised the following: (1) a threat as likely to harm their group, (2) a threat as severely harming their group, and (3) Québécois as not having efficacy to protect their group. In Study 1b, results were replicated in the context of the realistic threat that Islamic extremists pose to Christian‐Lebanese. In Studies 2a and 2b, we manipulated the three appraisals and found a similar pattern of results in the context of a potential terrorist attack on American soil by Islamic extremists. Importantly, collective angst mediated the threat appraisal effect on (non‐Muslim) Americans' prejudice towards Muslims. The utility of the appraisal model for regulating collective angst (and thus its consequences) is discussed.     

Are the ethnically tolerant free of discrimination,prejudice and political intolerance?

We hypothesized that the ethnically tolerant (i.e., people who are anti‐ethnocentric and score very low on a measure of ethnocentrism) would perceive people with extremely incompatible values and beliefs as out‐groups and would engage in discrimination, prejudice and political intolerance against them. Experiments among Australian citizens in Studies 1 (N = 224) and 2 (N = 283) showed that the ethnically tolerant perceived supporters of a message in favour of mandatory detention of asylum seekers as out‐groups and consequently exhibited discrimination, prejudice and political intolerance against them. Study 3 with 265 U.S. citizens showed that, controlling for liberalism, ethnic tolerance led to prejudice against out‐groups. This was replicated with 522 UK citizens in Study 4, which also showed that social identity, and not moral conviction, mediated the link between ethnic tolerance and prejudice. The findings suggest that the ethnically tolerant can be discriminatory, prejudiced and politically intolerant against fellow humans.     

When threat to society becomes a threat to oneself: Implications for right‐wing attitudes and ethnic prejudice

The relationships between threat on one hand and right‐wing attitudes and ethnic prejudice on the other were investigated in a heterogeneous sample (N = 588). Specifically, we considered the perception of economic and terroristic threats in terms of their consequences at the societal and personal levels. Previous studies revealed that societal consequences of threat, rather than personal consequences, are related to right‐wing attitudes. However, the present results challenge these findings. More specifically, three important results emerged. First, items probing the distinct threat levels loaded on separate dimensions for economic and terroristic threat, validating the distinction between societal and personal threat consequences. Second, consistent with previous research, this study revealed that perceived societal consequences of threat yield strong and robust relationships with all target variables. However, personal consequences of threat were also associated with higher levels of right‐wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), and ethnic prejudice in particular. Third, societal and personal consequences of threat interacted in explaining the target variables. More specifically, feeling personally threatened by terrorism was only related to higher levels of RWA in the presence of low levels of threat to society, whereas experiencing personal economic threat was only related to higher levels of SDO and ethnic prejudice when high societal economic threat was experienced. In sum, although the perception of societal consequences of threat plays a prominent role in explaining right‐wing attitudes and ethnic prejudice, the perception of being personally affected by threat is also associated with higher levels of RWA and SDO, and especially ethnic prejudice.     

Misreading Islamist Terrorism: The "War Against Terrorism" and Just-War Theory

Abstract: The Bush administration's military war on terrorism is a blunt, ineffective, and unjust response to the threat posed to innocent civilians by terrorism. Decentralized terrorist networks can only be effectively fought by international cooperation among police and intelligence agencies representing diverse nation‐states, including ones with predominantly Islamic populations. The Bush administration's allegations of a global Islamist terrorist threat to the national interests of the United States misread the decentralized and complex nature of Islamist politics. Undoubtedly there exists a “combat fundamentalist” element within Islamism. But the threat posed to U.S. citizens by Islamist terrorism neither necessitates nor justifies as a response massive military invasions of other nations. Not only does the Bush administration's war on alleged “terrorist states” violate the doctrine of just war, but in addition these wars arise from a new, unilateral, imperial foreign‐policy doctrine of “preventive wars.” Such a doctrine will isolate the United States from international institutions and long‐standing allies. The weakening of these institutions and alliances will only weaken the ability of the international community to deter terrorism.     

Does peace have a prayer? The effect of mortality salience, compassionate values, and religious fundamentalism on hostility toward out-groups

Religious fundamentalism has been shown to be associated with higher levels of prejudice, ethnocentrism, and militarism, in spite of the compassionate values promoted by the religious faiths that most fundamentalists believe in. Based on terror management theory, we hypothesized that priming these compassionate values would encourage a shift toward less support for violent solutions to the current Middle Eastern conflict, especially when they are combined with reminders of one’s mortality. Study 1 demonstrated that among Americans, religious fundamentalism was associated with greater support for extreme military interventions, except when participants were reminded of their mortality and primed with compassionate religious values. The combination of mortality salience and compassionate religious values led to significant decreases in support for such interventions among high but not low fundamentalists. Study 2 replicated this finding and showed that it depends on the association of the compassionate values with an authoritative religious source; presentation of these values in a secular context had no effect on fundamentalists. Study 3 replicated these effects in a sample of Iranian Shiite Muslims: although a reminder of death increased anti-Western attitudes among participants primed with secular compassionate values, it decreased anti-Western attitudes among those primed with compassionate values from the Koran.     

The vicious circle of religious prejudice: Islamophobia makes the acculturation attitudes of majority and minority members clash

Public discourse often portrays Islam as the main obstacle for Muslim minorities' integration, paying little attention to the contextual factors hindering this process. Here, we focus on islamophobia as one destructive factor that hinders the mutual integration between Muslim minority and Western majority members, affecting both groups. In Study 1, the more islamophobic majority members were, the more they expected Muslims to give up their heritage culture and the less they wanted them to integrate. In Study 2, only when Muslims experienced substantial religious discrimination did religious identity negatively relate to national engagement and particularly positively relate to ethnic engagement. Together, the studies suggest that religious prejudice in the form of islamophobia is a major obstacle to Muslims' integration because it increases the incongruity between majority and minority members' acculturation attitudes.     

On Primoratz's Definition of Terrorism

ABSTRACT In “What is terrorism?” Igor Primoratz defines ‘terrorism’ as “the deliberate use of violence, or threat of its use, against innocent people, with the aim of intimidating them, or other people, into a course of action they otherwise would not take.” I argue that this definition needs to be modified (1) by requiring that the harm or threat be to persons other than those intimidated, (2) by including aims which do not concern action, and (3) by distinguishing terrorists who know they are terrorists from those who do not.     

From prejudice to discrimination: The legitimizing role of perceived threat in discrimination against immigrants

This research analyses the mediational role of threat perception in the relationship between prejudice and discrimination (opposition to immigration and opposition to naturalization of immigrants). In the first study, using representative samples in 21 European countries (N = 36 566) from European Social Survey (2002), we showed that the relationship between prejudice and opposition to immigration was more strongly mediated by realistic than by symbolic threat perceptions. In Study 2, using representative samples in two countries with different traditions of immigration (Switzerland, N = 940; Portugal, N = 1514), we showed that realistic threat more strongly mediated the relationship between prejudice and opposition to immigration, while only symbolic threat perception mediated the link between prejudice and opposition to naturalization. The theoretical implications of considering threat perceptions as factors that legitimize discrimination are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Religious Quest Orientation and Anti‐Gay Sentiment: Nuancing the Relationship Between Religiosity and Negative Attitudes Toward Homosexuality Among Young Muslims and Christians in Flanders

Public opinion research has repeatedly shown that religious people generally report more prejudice against homosexuality. However, previous research exploring the general mechanisms that underpin this relationship mostly relied on Christian samples in North America. Studies outside North America are few in number and limited in the forms of religiosity they address. Of all indicators that have been studied so far, a religious quest orientation was found to be the only one negatively related to anti‐gay sentiments. This leaves open the question whether the mechanisms for different forms of religiosity can also be found outside North America. Against that background this research note assesses how religious quest orientation, self‐rated religiosity, religious behavior, and authoritarianism are related to prejudice against homosexuality among Christian and Muslim youth aged 14–23 in Flanders (N = 2,834). This study is the first that investigates the relationship between religious quest orientation and anti‐gay sentiments among Muslims. For both Christians and Muslims, we found that even taking into account a wide range of social background and religious characteristics, having a religious quest orientation is related to less prejudice toward homosexuality.     

Many faces of dogmatism: Prejudice as a way of protecting certainty against value violators among dogmatic believers and atheists

In this article, we suggest that dogmatic beliefs, manifested as strong beliefs that there is no God (i.e., dogmatic atheism) as well as strong beliefs in God (i.e., religious orthodoxy), can serve as a cognitive response to uncertainty. Moreover, we claim that people who dogmatically do not believe in religion and those who dogmatically believe in religion are equally prone to intolerance and prejudice towards groups that violate their important values. That is because prejudice towards these groups may be an efficient strategy to protect the certainty that strong beliefs provide. We tested these assumptions in two studies. In Study 1 and Study 2, we demonstrated that dogmatic beliefs mediate the relationship between intolerance to uncertainty and both, religious orthodoxy and dogmatic atheism. In addition, in Study 2 we showed that both the religiously orthodox and dogmatic atheists become prejudiced towards groups that violate their values and that these effects are especially strong under experimentally induced uncertainty. In this study, we focused on atheists and homosexuals as groups that pose a threat to Christian's religious worldviews, and Catholics and pro‐life supporters as groups that pose a threat to the values of atheists. The results are discussed in relation to past research on dogmatism and religion, as well as with reference to what this means for the study of prejudice.     

The aftermath of destruction: Images of destroyed buildings increase support for war,dogmatism, and death thought accessibility

Building on terror management theory, we hypothesized that viewing destroyed buildings would increase death thought accessibility and thereby elicit dogmatic belief and hostile worldview defenses. In Study 1, images of destroyed buildings and deadly terrorist attacks elicited greater death-thought accessibility than images of construction sites or intact buildings. Images of destruction also enhanced dogmatic belief (Study 2) and support for military action against Iran (Study 3). Study 4 found that heightened death thought accessibility, but not the accessibility of thoughts of war or national identity, statistically mediated the relationship between visible destruction and worldview defense. Further, although destruction images increased dogmatism, political orientation was not affected by the destruction manipulation nor was political orientation related to death-thought accessibility. Overall, these findings suggest that visibly destroyed infrastructure can motivate increased certainty of beliefs and support for military aggression (e.g., war and/or terrorism) against groups perceived to be threatening to one's worldview.     

The Role of Christianity and Islam in Explaining Prejudice against Asylum Seekers: Evidence from Malaysia

ABSTRACT

Prejudicial attitudes toward asylum seekers are prevalent, and an emerging body of literature has revealed that this is partly driven by religious affiliation. The population of Malaysia is multireligious, making it a fruitful location for testing religion-based prejudice hypotheses. Thus, across 2 studies we tested the roles of Christianity and Islam in explicit and implicit prejudices against asylum seekers in the Malaysian context. In Study 1 (n = 97), we present evidence that there are religion-based differences in prejudice against asylum seekers; specifically, Muslims reported higher levels of (classical) explicit prejudice toward asylum seekers than Christians (there were no differences in conditional or implicit prejudices). In Study 2 (n = 117), we tested the hypothesis that these religion-based differences are qualified by the religion of the asylum seeker. In this study, we used a framing paradigm to experimentally manipulate the religion of the asylum-seeking targets. The results revealed an out-group exacerbation effect; that is, participants reported higher levels of prejudice toward asylum seekers who had a different religion from their own. For classical explicit prejudice, the effect was strongest from Muslims toward Christian asylum seekers. Conversely, for implicit prejudice, the reverse was true: The effect was strongest from Christians toward Muslim asylum seekers. These findings are discussed in terms of the political and social circumstances in Malaysia, but we interpret these findings as evidence that explicit and implicit attitudes toward asylum seekers are driven by a complex pattern of religion-based intergroup biases.