Development of an intergroup anxiety toward Muslims scale

Understanding intergroup relations and the anxiety that can result has become increasingly relevant to interactions between Muslim and non-Muslim individuals due to current tensions between Islamic extremist groups and many Western nations. The anticipated increase in migration from countries with large Islamic populations to Western countries will undoubtedly lead to increased contact between these groups. Currently, there are no measures of intergroup anxiety elicited when interacting specifically with Muslims. Thus, the goal of the current studies was to fill this gap by developing a measure of intergroup anxiety toward Muslims. Across 3 studies, the reliability and validity of a new measure of intergroup anxiety toward Muslims was assessed. An exploratory factor analysis (Study 1) identified 11 reliable items that were supported by confirmatory factor analysis (Study 2). Across all 3 studies, the scale demonstrated good convergent validity, such that participants who reported higher levels of intergroup anxiety toward Muslims also reported more negative attitudes toward Muslims and greater general intergroup anxiety than individuals with lower intergroup anxiety toward Muslims. Assessment of discriminant validity showed that the scale differentiated between attitudes toward Muslims and other out-groups, as well as general anxiety and depression. The Intergroup Anxiety toward Muslims Scale was also reliable across different samples (i.e., college students and community members) and methods of data collection (i.e., online and in person).     

Perceived threat and prejudice towards immigrants in Finland: A study among early,middle, and late Finnish adolescents

Using integrated threat theory, this study examined how perceived threat, or fear of immigrants, manifests among early, middle, and late Finnish adolescents, and the relationship between perceived threat and prejudice among early, middle, and late adolescents. The sample consisted of 795 Finnish adolescents between 11 and 19 years of age. Realistic and symbolic threats were the most perceived threats and were more prevalent among late adolescents. There was a positive relationship between prejudice and realistic threat, and between prejudice and symbolic threat, but a negative relationship between prejudice and negative stereotyping, and this relationship remained relatively stable from early to late adolescence. Implications on the fight against prejudice towards immigrants among early, middle, and late adolescents are also discussed.     

Conflict Management Styles: The Role of Ethnic Identity and Self-Construal among Young Male Arabs and Americans

This cross-cultural study compared young male Arabs’ and young male Americans’ perceptions of their ethnic identity, self-construal, and conflict management styles. Findings indicated that Arabs had stronger ethnic identity than Americans. Arabs were both more independent and interdependent than American participants. Conflict style comparisons demonstrated that Americans chose the emotional expression, dominating, and neglect styles more than Arabs, and Arabs chose the integrating, third-party help, and avoiding styles more than Americans. Participants did not differ in their preference of the compromising and obliging conflict management styles. In terms of the relationships among ethnic identity, self-construal, and conflict styles, little difference was found between the two cultural groups. The integrating, compromising, avoiding, and neglect conflict management styles were predicted by both independent and interdependent self construal for both cultural groups. The obliging and third-party conflict styles were positively predicted by interdependent self-construal. The dominating style was predicted by independent self-construal and ethnic identity. The only conflict style that was predicted differently among Arab and American participants was the emotional expression style. Among American participants, interdependent self-construal and ethnic identity predicted emotional expression style. For Arabs, independent self-construal predicted the emotional expression style.     

Muslim Rulers Visiting the Imperial City: Building Alliances and Personal Networks between Constantinople and the Eastern Borderlands (Fourth/Tenth–Fifth/Eleventh Century)

This essay explores one of the main tools of Byzantine diplomatic techniques: inviting foreign rulers to Constantinople and establishing bonds of alliance through the bestowal of titles and stipends, with respect to the empire's Muslim neighbours in the fourth/tenth and fifth/eleventh centuries. In particular, it will be explained how and under what circumstances the traditional lines of communication between Constantinople and the caliphal court of Baghdad were gradually transformed into a multilayered network of personal contacts between the emperor and a number of Muslim frontier lords, who partly took on the role of representatives and dignitaries of the Byzantine Empire. Furthermore, I will try to examine the development of these newly established networks with respect to the emirates of Aleppo and Edessa, the Jarrā?id clan in Syria and the Marwānid dynasty in the Upper Euphrates and Lake Van region.     

Contact with a multicultural past: A prejudice-reducing intervention

This paper introduces the notion of contact with a multicultural past as a new type of indirect intergroup contact. It presents results of a study which evaluated the effects of an educational program utilizing the proposed framework. The program aimed to facilitate the engagement of Polish students (N = 427) with historical Jewish heritage in their places of residence. The intervention proved highly successful at increasing students' knowledge of and interest in local history which both contributed independently to an increased inclusion of the outgroup (Jews) in the self and in turn to more positive attitudes towards them. The implications of using contact with a multicultural past in societies with low levels of direct intergroup contact are discussed.     

Broadening the mind: Beneficial effects of sojourn experiences and contact with visiting international students on prospective teachers’ motivation to avoid prejudiced behavior

Opportunities for intergroup contact are particularly important for prospective teachers because they bear responsibility for an ethnically diverse student population. Using data from a sample of 330 students inscribed in Austrian university colleges of teacher education, we investigated the long-term effects of international student exchange on prospective teachers’ motivation to avoid prejudiced behavior (MAPB). Both sojourning and domestic students’ friendships with visiting international students (VIS) were evaluated as potential instances of naturally occurring intergroup contact that can affect students’ MAPB. Sojourning students had an increased MAPB even nine months after returning to their home country. No effect was found for domestic students’ friendships with VIS. Possibly, the quality of these friendships was insufficient to result in long-term prejudice reduction. Implications of these results are discussed, and the need to advance interventions that are appropriate to improve domestic students’ contact with VIS is ascertained.     

Identification and ethnic diversity underlie support for multicultural rights: A multilevel analysis in Bulgaria

Bulgaria is historically a multicultural society, composed of the Bulgarian (ethnic) majority and a number of ethnic minorities among which Bulgarian Turks and Roma are the largest. Both minority communities are stigmatized in contemporary Bulgaria, though to different degrees and for different reasons. Ethnic minorities' rights to preserve their culture, customs, and language are a topic of contentious debate. The purpose of this study was to examine individual- and context-level antecedents of the ethnic Bulgarian majority's support for multicultural rights of ethnic minorities. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted with International Social Survey Programme ISSP 2003 data (N = 920 in 28 Bulgarian districts). At the individual-level, an ethnic conception of the nation and anti-Roma symbolic prejudice were negatively related to support for multicultural rights, whereas national identification was positively related to the support of these rights. Over and above individual-level effects, and in line with recent extensions of intergroup contact theory, the percentage of Bulgarian Turks within districts was positively related to support for multicultural rights. Importantly, support for multicultural rights was particularly high in districts characterized by ethnic diversity, that is, in districts with high proportions of both Bulgarian Turks and Roma. The beneficial effects of ethnic diversity and theoretical implications of findings are discussed.     

Caliphal Imperialism and Ḥijāzī elites in the second/eighth Century

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to the debate over the effectiveness with which late Umayyad and early ?Abbāsid caliphs negotiated their respective rights and duties with provincial elites during the second/eighth century. The focus is on the relationships that evolved between the caliphs and those elite families residing in the ?ijāz whose ancestors had helped to establish the Muslim community and the early caliphal empire in the mid-first/seventh century. The article's analysis centres on a series of four revolts in the ?ijāz over the second/eighth century and examines developments in the enthusiasm with which local elites either supported or opposed those revolts. This discussion demonstrates that, aside from a brief period during the first decades of ?Abbāsid rule, Umayyad and ?Abbāsid caliphs during the second/eighth century were actually quite successful at inspiring loyalty among the local elites of the ?ijāz.     

An exploratory study on the attitudes of elderly Finns towards Russian-speaking minorities

Research has shown Russian speakers in Finland are often victims of prejudice and discrimination. Utilizing integrated threat theory, this study investigated the extent to which threats are significant predictors of prejudice towards Russian speakers in Finland among a highly neglected research population – the elderly. This study also aimed at finding out which threat (realistic threat, symbolic threat, and negative stereotyping) was the most significant predictor of attitudes towards members of the Russian-speaking minority, and the extent to which men and women differed. In a sample of 90 participants, aged 65 and above, results indicated realistic threat and symbolic threat were not significant predictors of prejudicial attitudes towards members of the Russian-speaking community. Negative stereotyping however had a negative effect on prejudice. Moreover, contrary to previous research on prejudice, there were no significant differences between men and women on threat.     

Tolerance towards difference: Adaptation and psychometric properties of the Spanish version of a new measure of tolerance and sex-moderated relations with prejudice

The present research aims at adapting to the Spanish context and language a measure of tolerance toward diversity recently developed, at analyzing its psychometric properties, and at examining the moderating effect of participants’ sex on the relations between tolerance and prejudice. We conducted two studies considering two Spanish samples taken from the general population. In Study 1 (N = 586; 70.5 % females; M_age = 37.77, SD = 12.34) we confirmed the three-factorial structure of the questionnaire (i.e., acceptance of diversity, respect for diversity and appreciation of diversity) and their invariance across sex groups. In Study 2 (N = 333; 60.4 % females; M_age = 36.20, SD = 13.36) evidence of validity based on the relations of tolerance with prejudice (modern racism, hostile sexism, and benevolent sexism) are presented. Additional findings reveal the role of the appreciation of diversity dimension to reduce prejudice, as well as differences between men and women in this relation: when participants express low appreciation of diversity, men show more hostile sexism and modern racism than women. Such differences did not emerge for those who highly appreciate diversity. The implications of using this multidimensional questionnaire to measure tolerance are discussed.