Threat to national identity continuity: When affirmation procedures increase the acceptance of Muslim immigrants

Constantina Badea, Michael Bender and Hélène Korda ()
Additional contact information
Constantina Badea: LAPPS - Laboratoire Parisien de Psychologie Sociale - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre
Michael Bender: Tilburg University [Netherlands]
Hélène Korda: CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL

Abstract: European majority group members increasingly perceive threats to national continuity, which inturn leads to defensive reactions, including prejudice against Muslim immigrants. However,according to self-affirmation theory, individuals can respond in a less defensive manner if theyhave affirmed positive aspects of their self-concept (self-affirmation) or their social identity(group-affirmation). In the present research, we test the potential of affirmation procedures astools for reducing prejudice towards Muslim immigrants when national continuity is threatened.We examine the impact of personal vs. normative attachment to Christian roots of nationalidentity on the efficacy of affirmation procedures, and the congruence between the threatenedand the affirmed domains of the self. Results show that group-affirmation reduced opposition toMuslims' rights amongst participants personally attached to the idea that national continuity isbased on Christian roots. The discussion stresses the importance of non-congruence between thethreatened domain of the self and the affirmed domain for the design of affirmation procedures.

Keywords: group-affirmation; national continuity; Muslim immigrants; self-affirmation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-09
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02501264
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 2020, 78, pp.65-72. ⟨10.1016/j.ijintrel.2019.11.004⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-02501264/document (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:hal:cesptp:hal-02501264

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijintrel.2019.11.004

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().