Prejudice against Muslims: anxiety as a mediator between intergroup contact and attitudes, perceived group variability and behavioural intentions

Abstract

Numerous studies have reported an increase in prejudice against Muslims in recent years. Less research has investigated how this increase might be stemmed and relations between non-Muslims and Muslims improved. In this article, we address prejudice against Muslims from the perspective of intergroup contact theory. We conducted two cross-sectional studies to examine the relationship between non-Muslim students' experiences of contact with Muslims and their intergroup anxiety, outgroup attitudes, perceptions of outgroup variability and intergroup behavioural intentions. Study 1 (N=58) showed that frequent high-quality contact with Muslims predicted more positive outgroup attitudes, more perceived outgroup variability and more positive behavioural intentions. These associations were mediated by intergroup anxiety. Study 2 (N=60) replicated these effects and additionally showed that anxiety mediates the influence of extended contact on the same outcome measures. Discussion focuses on the implications of the results for strategies aimed at improving relations between non-Muslims and Muslims.

Keywords:

• Prejudice
• Islam
• contact
• anxiety
• discrimination
• Muslim

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Martin Bulmer and two anonymous reviewers for feedback on an earlier version of this article and to Glenda Bolton, Neringa Brunze, Charisse Gibson and Maxine Word for their roles in data collection.

Notes

1. Although the present research is framed in terms of prejudice against Muslims, individuals and groups who are not Muslim but who are wrongly identified as such (e.g. through perceptions of ethnicity, national heritage or language) are also increasingly becoming the recipients of prejudiced attitudes and behaviour.

2. The term ‘Arab’ is distinct from the religious identity of ‘Muslim’. However, attacks on Arabs often reflect the assumption that they are Muslim (see Note 1). This is despite considerable religious diversity in many Arabic countries, and the far greater numbers of Muslims from non-Arabic ethnic and geographical areas.

3. We did not collect data on the participants’ race, ethnicity or nationality in either study because previous research suggests that these variables have no influence on attitudes towards Muslims (e.g. Park, Felix and Lee 2007).

4. Two of the data collectors were black and two of the data collectors were white. Race of data collectors had no impact on any of the analyses.

5. We report results of mediation analysis for the multiplicative index of intergroup contact, although intergroup anxiety also mediated the associations between contact quantity and quality and the various outcome measures.

6. Two of the data collectors were white and one of the data collectors was black. As in Study 1, race of data collectors had no impact on any of the analyses.

7. As in Study 1, intergroup anxiety also mediated the associations between contact quantity and quality on the various outcome measures.