Suchergebnisse

Since 2014, the refugee crisis has launched a political shockwave across Europe, with consequences for the European Union, the Schengen Zone, and national politics. Within this context, we investigated how public statements about the refugee crisis are received. While debate and criticism are hallmarks of a democratic society, research demonstrates that people respond more negatively to criticism about their group from an outsider compared with an insider. But does this reflect a protective bias in favour of one's own group, or a more principled position against criticism from outsiders independently of one's own group membership? In three experimental studies, people apply the principle of preferring internal over external criticism, even to the point of penalizing in-group members who criticized outgroups. This preference for internal over external criticism is guided by perceptions that internal critics are more constructive and more expert than external critics.

Abstract. Growing Muslim minorities in Western societies has sparked debate about which Muslim practices should be accepted, with many people finding certain practices intolerable. Two competing perspectives on this intolerance argue that it represents either principled objections or prejudice. Using four large samples from the Netherlands, we apply latent profile analysis and find four groups of people: two groups that like and dislike Muslims and their practices respectively, but also two groups who are intolerant of some or most Muslim practices without necessarily displaying prejudice. A person-centered analysis of key demographic and psychological variables suggests that the two intolerant groups differ with one group's intolerance motivated more by anti-Muslim feelings, while the second group's intolerance is motivated more by principled objections.

Since 2014, the refugee crisis has launched a political shockwave across Europe, with consequences for the European Union, the Schengen Zone, and national politics. Within this context, we investigated how public statements about the refugee crisis are received. While debate and criticism are hallmarks of a democratic society, research demonstrates that people respond more negatively to criticism about their group from an outsider compared with an insider. But does this reflect a protective bias in favour of one's own group, or a more principled position against criticism from outsiders independently of one's own group membership? In three experimental studies, people apply the principle of preferring internal over external criticism, even to the point of penalizing in‐group members who criticized outgroups. This preference for internal over external criticism is guided by perceptions that internal critics are more constructive and more expert than external critics.

AbstractAround the world, movements for justice or social change struggle with the question of whether to use nonviolent or violent protest strategies. While research suggests that nonviolent strategies may be more successful than violent ones, people's preferences and support for different strategies may depend on their specific role in the conflict. We tested this in Study 1 in the context of the Kurdish question in Turkey (N = 320), and we found that Turks and Americans supported nonviolent movements more than violent movements, while Kurds were equally supportive of both. Study 2 (N = 192) replicated Study 1 and investigated whether the preference for nonviolent strategies among the third‐party group was dependent on the perceivers' specific preferred outcomes in the conflict. We found that, in the context of the Kurdish question in Syria, third‐party Americans still supported nonviolent movements more than violent movements regardless of their preferred outcomes, although the more that they preferred that Kurds would win the conflict, the more supportive they were of both nonviolent and violent protest movements. These studies suggest that the preference for nonviolent strategies may depend on people's role in the conflict, with important implications for addressing conflict needs and conflict resolution.

Tolerance, the acceptance of disapproved conduct of others, is considered an indispensable feature of diverse societies. Yet tolerance can be expressed in one of two distinct ways, which is not reflected in the literature. In one way, tolerance is passive and involves suppressing the inclination to interfere with the disapproved conduct of others. In the other way, tolerance is active and involves endorsing the ability of others to engage in a disapproved practice. Using two nationally representative samples of Dutch majority members and eight scenarios involving real‐world debates about the accommodation of Muslim minority practices, we find that while a significant minority of people engage in passive tolerance toward disapproved outgroup practices, very few people are willing to engage in active tolerance by proactively supporting disapproved practices. Furthermore, we also find that people who have stronger moral concerns about particular minority practices are less willing to engage in either active or passive tolerance. These results emerged both in contexts where Muslim minority practices had a direct impact on one's personal life as well as those that impacted on society as a whole. Collectively, these results illustrate two different forms of tolerance and the influence of moral concern in tolerance.

West European societies have seen strong debates about the acceptance of Muslim minority practices. In the current research we sought to better understand intolerance by examining whether people use a double standard in which the same practices are tolerated of Christians but not of Muslims (discriminatory intolerance), or rather reject the practices independently of the religious minority group because these are considered to contradict society's normative ways of life (normative intolerance). The results of two survey-embedded experiments among native Dutch were most in agreement with an interpretation in terms of normative intolerance rather than discriminatory intolerance. This suggests that the rejection of Muslim practices has less to do with Muslims per se but rather with the perceived normative deviance of the practices, independently of the religious minority group. These findings broaden the research on anti-Muslim sentiments and thereby the debate on the place of Islam within Western liberal societies.

AbstractIn recent decades, tolerance has been proposed as a necessary response to the global rise in cultural and religious diversity. Tolerance is widely embraced in community, national, and international policies, in relation to many types of differences between people and groups. However, in both public and academic discourse, the notion of tolerance appears to have various meanings, which limits our ability to create, evaluate, and implement effective policies. To discuss various policy implications of toleration, we first consider the concept of toleration and its difference from prejudice. We then discuss existing research on intergroup tolerance, the importance of perspective taking, the asymmetry of tolerance, and the boundaries of toleration. Subsequently, we discuss research that indicates that the discourse of tolerance can function as a dimension of intergroup comparison that leads to acceptance or rejection of cultural and religious minority groups. Furthermore, we consider the depoliticized effects that tolerance discourse might have and the possible negative psychological consequences for groups that are tolerated in society. Gaps in existing knowledge are considered and policy implications are explored throughout.

AbstractAn increasing number of states permit dual citizenship, but there are public concerns about divided loyalties of dual citizens which might lead to intolerance of their political rights. We propose and test whether these concerns depend on the emotional versus instrumental reasons immigrants express for acquiring their second, host society citizenship. Using a survey experiment on a nationally representative sample of native-born Dutch, we find that emotional (vs. instrumental) reasons for a second citizenship lead to higher perceived host society loyalty, which is related to greater political tolerance of dual citizens. Instrumental reason for dual citizenship leads to higher perceived loyalty to the country of origin; however, this is not related to political tolerance of such dual citizens. Implications for theory and society are considered.

Abstract. People's interpretations of media reports about crimes may be biased by their motivations to construct and protect their worldviews and, relatedly, by criminals' group membership. Two large-scale experiments ( Ns = 248 and 1,115) investigated how American adults interpret reports of crimes committed by either a Christian or Muslim, and how these interpretations depend on political ideology. Results show liberals attributing crimes more to religion for Christian rather than Muslim offenders, with the opposite effect for conservatives. Importantly, these biases also influenced how people communicated the news report to others. Additionally, evidence suggests that attitudes toward Islam and not toward Muslims may explain these effects. Implications for how political ideology affects interpretation and communication of media portrayals of Muslims are discussed.