Trends in the Psychological Study of Contemporary Antisemitism: Conceptual Issues and Empirical Evidence

ABSTRACT

This article reviews evidence bearing on whether antisemitism has recently reemerged as a dangerous and global sociopolitical problem. Two empirical studies then explore how psychologists and other social scientists have investigated anti–Jewish bigotry. The first looks at research trends in major social scientific databases since the 1940s. The second is a content analysis of abstracts of psychological studies on antisemitism since 1990. The article concludes, among other findings, that while social scientific aspects of the Holocaust have been studied in some detail, contemporary anti-Jewish hostility has been underestimated, and antisemitism from the Muslim/Arab world has been largely ignored.

Acknowledgment

An earlier version of this article was presented on July 5, 2015, at the 38th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology, in San Diego, CA.