Explaining Muslims’ Aggressive Tendencies Towards the West: The Role of Negative Stereotypes, Anger, Perceived Conflict and Islamic Fundamentalism

Abstract

The current research was to investigate what psychological factors predict Muslims’ negative stereotypes of the West, and the underlying mechanism by which the negative stereotypes can translate into Muslims’ aggressive tendencies towards the West. A correlational survey among a sample of Indonesian Muslims (N = 360) demonstrated that the more participants negatively stereotyped the West, the more they thought that Muslims should aggress the latter group. We also found as expected that Muslims’ negative stereotypes of the West were positively predicted by the perceived conflict between Islam and the West, and this perceived intergroup conflict in turn mediated the role of Islamic fundamentalism in predicting the negative stereotypes. These findings in sum highlight the role of contextual and individual factors in predicting Muslims’ negative stereotypes of the West, as well as the impact of these stereotypes on Muslims’ aggressive tendencies towards the West. Theoretical implications and research limitations of these empirical findings are discussed.