"You Little Creep": Evidence of Blatant Dehumanization of Short Groups

Physical cues influence social judgments of others. For example, shorter individuals are evaluated less positively than taller individuals. Here, we demonstrate that height also impacts one of the most consequential intergroup judgments - attributions of humanity - and explore whether this effect is modulated by the tendency to value hierarchy maintenance. In Study 1, the shorter participants perceived a range of out-groups to be, the more they dehumanized them, and this tended to be particularly pronounced among those scoring high on social dominance orientation (SDO). In Study 2, participants dehumanized an out-group more when they were led to believe that it was relatively short. Finally, Study 3 applied a reverse correlation approach, demonstrating that participants in general, and especially those scoring high on SDO, represented shorter groups in ways less consistent with full humanity than they represented taller groups. Together, this research demonstrates that basic physical height cues shape the perceived humanity of out-groups

White Look-Alikes: Mainstream Culture Adoption Makes Immigrants "Look" Phenotypically White

White Americans generally equate "being American" with "being White." In six studies, we demonstrate that White Americans perceive immigrants who adopt American mainstream culture as racially White and, reciprocally, perceive White-looking immigrants as assimilating more. In Studies 1 and 2, participants visually represented immigrants who adopted U.S. culture by acculturating to mainstream American culture or by holding a common or dual identity as more phenotypically White and less stereotypic in appearance. In Studies 3 and 4, these processes explained why participants were less likely to racially profile immigrants but also regarded them as less qualified for integration support. In Study 5, participants perceived light skin to fit to high U.S. culture adoption and dark skin to low U.S. culture adoption. Finally, in Study 6, light-skinned immigrants were seen as less threatening because they were perceived as assimilating more. Immigrants’ acculturation orientation and appearance interact and shape how they are evaluated

Acculturation preferences and perceived (dis)loyalty of Muslims in the U.K.: Two vignette-based experimental studies

Muslims in the U.K. who maintain their religious culture are often viewed as a suspect community. This pre-registered experimental research examined the mediating role of perceived (dis)loyalty as underlying process and the moderating role of acculturation expectations. A total of 334 non-Muslim White British participants in Study 1 and 810 in Study 2 were asked to indicate their acculturation expectations towards Muslims. They were then randomly assigned to read a text that described Muslims in a fictional town as either (a) maintaining their religious culture or (b) adopting the mainstream British culture, or they read (c) a neutral control text. As expected, in Study 1, when Muslims were presented as maintaining their religious culture, trust decreased compared to the control group. Conversely, when described as adopting the mainstream culture, trust increased while support for surveillance of Muslims decreased. Both effects were mediated by the perception of Muslims being disloyal or loyal to the U.K in both studies, respectively. Perceived loyalty to their religious group did not significantly mediate any effect. We replicated these findings in Study 2. Moreover, we showed that describing Muslims as maintaining their religious culture decreased trust and increased support for surveillance especially among participants who expected Muslims to give up their religious culture. Moderated mediation analysis showed that these effects were partly mediated by perceived loyalty to the U.K. We discuss the societal implications of the findings for policymakers and Muslim leaders along with recommendations for future research.publishedVersio

Psychological interventions countering misinformation in social media : a scoping review : research protocol

Introduction: Misinformation is a complex concept and its meaning can encompass several kinds of different phenomena. Liang Wu et el. consider a wide variety of online behavior as misinformation:1 unintentionally spreading false information, intentionally spreading false information, disseminating urban legends, sharing fake news, unverified information, and rumors, as well as crowdturfing, spamming, trolling, and propagating hate speech, or being involved in cyberbullying. The aim of this review is to address the following question: “What psychological interventions countering misinformation can be deployed on popular social media platforms (e.g. Twitter, Facebook)?". In order to address this question, we have designed a systematic scoping review procedure in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. 2,3 Effective measures of countering misinformation on social media are instrumental for facilitating and fostering reliable public conversation about political and social problems. Moreover, countering misinformation on social media platforms can be also considered a public health intervention, especially in the time of health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods and analysis: A scoping review is a modern, rigorous approach to synthesis science, developed among others by the Joanna Briggs Institute team. For data extractions, we plan to use the following databases: Embase, Scopus, and PubMed. For paper selection, eligibility criteria were defined

The missing side of acculturation : how majority-group members relate to immigrant and minority-group cultures

In many countries, individuals who have represented the majority group historically are decreasing in relative size and/or perceiving that they have diminished status and power compared to those identifying as immigrants or members of ethnic minority groups. These developments raise several salient and timely issues including: (a) how majority-group members’ cultural orientations change as a consequence of increasing intercultural contact due to shifting demographics;(b) what individual, group, cultural and socio-structural processes shape these changes; and (c) the implications of majority-group members’ acculturation .Although research across several decades has examined the acculturation of individuals identifying as minority-group members, much less is known about how majority-group members acculturate in increasingly diverse societies. We present an overview of the state of the art in the emerging field of majority-group acculturation, identify what is known and needs to be known, and introduce a conceptual model guiding future research

The Attitudes of Deconverted and Lifelong Atheists Towards Religious Groups : The Role of Religious and Spiritual Identity

Increasing atheism, or the view that there is no God, is a major trend affecting the Western religious landscape. Scholarly interest in atheists has grown together with their number, but unanswered questions abound. In this study, we present survey data (N = 758) collected from deconverted and lifelong atheists in four countries (Australia, Finland, Germany, and Norway), and investigate the relationships between deconversion, religious identity, spiritual identity, and interreligious attitudes. We show that retaining a low level of religious or spiritual identity is more typical for deconverts than life-long atheists. Furthermore, we demonstrate that higher religious or spiritual identity among deconverts is associated with more positive attitudes toward different religious groups (national religious majority, religious minorities in general, and Muslims specifically).Peer reviewe

The Nature of Islamophobia: A Test of a Tripartite View in Five Countries.

Funder: Excellence Initiative of the states and the federal government (German Research Foundation)This article provides an examination of the structure of Islamophobia across cultures. Our novel measure-the Tripartite Islamophobia Scale (TIS)-embeds three theoretically and statistically grounded subcomponents of Islamophobia: anti-Muslim prejudice, anti-Islamic sentiment, and conspiracy beliefs. Across six samples (i.e., India, Poland, Germany, France, and the United States), preregistered analyses corroborated that these three subcomponents are statistically distinct. Measurement invariance analyses indicated full scalar invariance, suggesting that the tripartite understanding of Islamophobia is generalizable across cultural contexts. Furthermore, the subcomponents were partially dissociated in terms of the intergroup emotions they are predicted by as well as the intergroup outcomes they predict (e.g., dehumanization, ethnic persecution). For example, intergroup anger and disgust underpin Islamophobic attitudes, over and above the impact of fear. Finally, our results show that social dominance orientation (SDO) and ingroup identification moderate intergroup emotions and Islamophobia. We address both theoretical implications for the nature of Islamophobia and practical interventions to reduce it

The Nature of Islamophobia: A Test of a Tripartite View in Five Countries.

Funder: Excellence Initiative of the states and the federal government (German Research Foundation)This article provides an examination of the structure of Islamophobia across cultures. Our novel measure-the Tripartite Islamophobia Scale (TIS)-embeds three theoretically and statistically grounded subcomponents of Islamophobia: anti-Muslim prejudice, anti-Islamic sentiment, and conspiracy beliefs. Across six samples (i.e., India, Poland, Germany, France, and the United States), preregistered analyses corroborated that these three subcomponents are statistically distinct. Measurement invariance analyses indicated full scalar invariance, suggesting that the tripartite understanding of Islamophobia is generalizable across cultural contexts. Furthermore, the subcomponents were partially dissociated in terms of the intergroup emotions they are predicted by as well as the intergroup outcomes they predict (e.g., dehumanization, ethnic persecution). For example, intergroup anger and disgust underpin Islamophobic attitudes, over and above the impact of fear. Finally, our results show that social dominance orientation (SDO) and ingroup identification moderate intergroup emotions and Islamophobia. We address both theoretical implications for the nature of Islamophobia and practical interventions to reduce it

Engaging in extreme activism in support of others’ political struggles: The role of politically motivated fusion with out-groups

Humans are a coalitional, parochial species. Yet, extreme actions of solidarity are sometimes taken for distant or unrelated groups. What motivates people to become solidary with groups to which they do not belong originally? Here, we demonstrate that such distant solidarity can occur when the perceived treatment of an out-group clashes with one’s political beliefs (e.g., for Leftists, oppressive occupation of the out-group) and that it is driven by fusion (or a feeling of oneness) with distant others with whom one does not share any common social category such as nationality, ethnicity or religion. In Study 1, being politically Leftist predicted European-Americans’ willingness to engage in extreme protest on behalf of Palestinians, which was mediated by fusion with the out-group. Next, in Study 2, we examined whether this pattern was moderated by out-group type. Here, Norwegian Leftists fused more with Palestinians (i.e., a group that, in the Norwegian context, is perceived to be occupied in an asymmetrical conflict) rather than Kurds (i.e., a group for which this perception is less salient). In Study 3, we experimentally tested the underlying mechanism by framing the Kurdish conflict in terms of an asymmetrical occupation (vs. symmetrical war or control conditions) and found that this increased Leftist European-Americans’ fusion with Kurds. Finally, in Study 4, we used a unique sample of non-Kurdish aspiring foreign fighters who were in the process of joining the Kurdish militia YPG. Here, fusion with the out-group predicted a greater likelihood to join and support the Kurdish forces in their fight against ISIS, insofar as respondents experienced that their political orientation morally compelled them to do so (Study 4). Together, our findings suggest that politically motivated fusion with out-groups underpins the extreme solidary action people may take on behalf of distant out-groups. Implications for future theory and research are discussed

The genetic underpinnings of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation explain political attitudes beyond Big Five personality

Objective: Political attitudes are predicted by the key ideological variables of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), as well as some of the Big Five personality traits. Past research indicates that personality and ideological traits are correlated for genetic reasons. A question that has yet to be tested concerns whether the genetic variation underlying the ideological traits of RWA and SDO has distinct contributions to political attitudes, or if genetic variation in political attitudes is subsumed under the genetic variation underlying standard Big Five personality traits. Method: We use data from a sample of 1987 Norwegian twins to assess the genetic and environmental relationships between the Big Five personality traits, RWA, SDO, and their separate contributions to political policy attitudes. Results: RWA and SDO exhibit very high genetic correlation (r = 0.78) with each other and some genetic overlap with the personality traits of openness and agreeableness. Importantly, they share a larger genetic substrate with political attitudes (e.g., deporting an ethnic minority) than do Big Five personality traits, a relationship that persists even when controlling for the genetic foundations underlying personality traits. Conclusion: Our results suggest that the genetic foundations of ideological traits and political attitudes are largely non-overlapping with the genetic foundations of Big Five personality traits