2010
Cairn
Immo Fritsche et al., « Enemies Welcome: Personal Threat and Reactions to Outgroup Doves and Hawks », Revue internationale de psychologie sociale, ID : 10670/1.383a2a...
Personal threat might hamper the resolution of intergroup conflicts involving terrorist violence by increasing stereotypic thinking towards outgroups associated with terrorism. This is indicated in research showing that existential personal threat elicits more positive evaluations of stereotype consistent and more negative evaluations of stereotype inconsistent outgroup members. In two experiments with Non-Muslim German participants we investigated the effects of both threats to existence and threats to control on reactions towards Muslim supporters (hawks, consistent with stereotype) and Muslim opponents of Islamist terrorism (doves, not consistent with stereotype). In line with our predictions we found decreased positive reactions towards doves following death salience in Study 1. Reduced positive evaluation of doves was also found as a tendency when lack of control was made salient in Study 2. In addition, salience of low control made negative reactions towards outgroup hawks less negative. The results illustrate a vicious circle of terrorist threat eliciting threats to personal life and control which in turn lead to the preservation of hostile outgroup stereotypes and thus intergroup conflict.