The present study addresses negative attitudes toward Muslims in The Netherlands, and combines ideas from integrated threat theory and socio-functional perspectives on threats and emotions. We proposed a model in which symbolic threat and negative stereotypes predict prejudice, social distance, and political intolerance toward Muslims through moral emotions. Results generally support the model and show that the relations of symbolic threat and stereotypes with prejudice and social distance were mediated by the moral emotions disgust, anger and pity. This was not the case for the relation between symbolic threat and political intolerance. Disgust and pity were strongly related to social distance, whereas anger was more strongly related to political intolerance. These findings confirm the importance of taking into account moral emotions in out-group attitudes.

Reactions to members of other groups are important in multicultural societies. In four studies (N = 725), we investigate the reactions of majority group members to minority group members who stress either their distinct identity or their shared identity when they express threatening critical messages. In Study 1, we investigate reactions to a person who stresses the importance of either his Moroccan and Muslim identity or his Dutch and non‐Islamic identity. In Studies 2 and 3, we disentangle national and religious identity. Across all studies, we find that minority group members who stress their shared identity rather than their distinct identity are evaluated more positively, are perceived as more similar to the self, and tend to evoke less anger. In Study 4, we replicate this finding and show that perceived similarity mediates the impact of identity on these evaluations, but constructiveness only partially mediates these relations. Results are discussed in terms of recategorization models and the intergroup sensitivity effect. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Weight stigma is pervasive and has profound negative consequences for obese individuals. The attribution-emotion approach of stigmatization holds that blame attributions relate to derogation stigmatized groups indirectly through anger and pity. Other research suggests that disgust is related to weight stigma. In the present studies, we investigate whether contempt is a reliable predictor of biases against obese individuals. Study 1 (N 5 297) shows that contempt partially mediates the relation between blame and both prejudice and support for weight related discrimination policies. Studies 2 and 3 (total N 5 406) added disgust and show that both contempt and disgust relate to social distance and prejudice. Contempt mediated the relation between blame and negative reactions toward obese individuals, even after controlling for other emotions, while disgust only mediated these relations in Study 2. Anger and pity did not show this mediating role, but pity was moderately associated with weight bias. Contempt is likely to play an important role in how people react to members of this stigmatized group.

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