Responses to the Islamic headscarf in everyday interactions depend on sex and locale: A field experiment in the metros of Brussels, Paris, and Vienna on helping and involvement behaviors

Martin Aranguren, Francesco Madrisotti, Eser Durmaz-Martins, Gernot Gerger, Lena Wittmann and Marc Méhu

PLOS ONE, 2021, vol. 16, issue 7, 1-29

Abstract: The Islamic headscarf has been in the middle of heated debates in European society, yet little is known about its influence on day-to-day interactions. The aim of this randomized field experiment (n = 840) is to explore how the generally negative views that surround the hijab in Europe manifest in the behavior that people direct to hijab-wearing women in everyday situations. Using a helping scenario and videotapes of the resulting interactions, we measured whether passengers offered assistance and also various details of behavior that indicate interpersonal involvement. We predicted that in interaction with the covered confederate less help would be offered, that women’s level of nonverbal involvement would increase but men’s decrease, and that responses would be stronger in Paris, intermediate in Brussels, and weaker in Vienna. We analyzed the data using Generalized Linear Models estimated with Bayesian inference. While the headscarf does not produce concluding differences in “overt” helping, it does affect “subtle” cues of interpersonal involvement. In response to the hijab, women across sites increase, but men in Paris decrease, the level of involvement that they show with their nonverbal behavior.

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0254927 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 54927&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0254927

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0254927

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().