Majority’s attitudes toward the Muslim veil: Outgroup derogation or defense of values? A review of 10 years of empirical research
(2017) International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conference — Location: Warsaw, Poland (16.July.2017)
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- Abstract
- Is European majority’s opposition toward the Muslim headscarf motivated by the need to defend liberal values like autonomy, gender equality, and universalism or does it mainly reflect intergroup prejudice and related values and social attitudes? What may be the psychological mechanisms underlying discomfort and even hostility toward the Muslim veil and what are the consequences for intergroup relations when interacting with a veiled person? In this paper, a set of 30 studies, mostly correlational, but also some experimental ones, published in the last ten years will be reviewed. These studies come from several Western countries, mostly European, but also Anglo-Saxon ones. They highly converge in their findings. First, Western negative attitudes toward the Islamic veil reflect prejudicial and xenophobic dispositions and not eagerness to defend liberal values. Second, beyond these mechanisms, these attitudes are also partly explained by strong anti-religious attitudes, not specifically toward Islam. Finally, for reasons that still have to be clarified, several lab studies show that faces partly or fully masked by the headscarf create spontaneously in the Western majority’s eyes several negative emotions and behaviors of discrimination, even when participants report positive feelings. The discussion will provide cues for understanding how this cultural and religious “accessory” has become an important source of intergroup conflict in today’s European societies.
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Saroglou, V., & et al. (2017). Majority’s attitudes toward the Muslim veil: Outgroup derogation or defense of values? A review of 10 years of empirical research. International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conference, Warsaw, Poland. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/110134