Hate Begets Warmth? The Impact of an Anti-Muslim Terrorist Attack on Public Attitudes toward Muslims

Shanaáh, Šádí; Yogeeswaran, Kumar; Greaves, Lara M.; Bulbulia, Joseph; Osborne, Danny; Afzali, M. Usman; Sibley, Chris G.

doi:10.1080/09546553.2021.1877673

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 4 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This is consistent with earlier findings based on the notion of “black sheep effect” (Jakobsson and Blom 2014; Shannah et al 2023; Solheim 2020), a situation where deviant ingroup members are judged more severely than outgroup members. In critical reaction against the xenophobic natives, many Koreans thus dissociated themselves with the anti-refugee camp by showing more support for the Yemeni asylum seekers.…”

Section: Notessupporting

confidence: 92%

“…As they witnessed the vitriolic anti-refugee movement in the country, many may have felt the need to dissociate themselves from it. A parallel phenomenon occurred in 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand after a far-right terrorist attack against Muslims: many politically conservative (and even right-wing) New Zealanders grew more supportive of the Muslim immigrant population (Shannah et al 2023).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The answer lies with the fact that those attacks were caused by an ingroup member, an ultra-conservative ethnic Norwegian. When the perpetrator's identity became public, as authors explain, natives collectively condemned the horrific violence and dissociated themselves from the terrorist (see also Shannah et al 2023). The initial hostility toward this (ingroup) outcast, fueled by emotional shocks, ultimately evolved into greater acceptance of and openness toward the generalized (outgroup) other.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Social Conflict and Outgroup Sentiment in South Korea: Evidence from the Yemeni Anti-Refugee Campaign

Kim

2023

J. East Asian Stud.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Research on attitudes toward immigrants and refugees largely focuses on intergroup conflict and related threats imposed by outgroup members. This study shifts the analytic focus to intragroup conflict: a domestic struggle among natives over how to handle recently arrived refugees and on their perception of foreign workers in general and Muslims in particular. By exploiting an exogenous variation in the interview timing of a nationally representative survey conducted in South Korea, a “new immigration destination,” this study offers a causal estimate (local average treatment effect) of domestic societal conflict on outgroup attitudes. Results from regression discontinuity (RD) analysis show that in its aftermath—immediately following the completion of a controversial e-petition sponsored by the anti-refugee group demanding that the government extradite asylum seekers—the public opinion of Korean adults toward foreign workers and Muslims became more, not less, favorable. Heterogeneous treatment effects are also found across two respondent-level characteristics: cosmopolitan identity and relative deprivation. Specifically, the focal relationship is more pronounced among individuals who identify less with cosmopolitan citizenship and among those who are more relatively deprived.

show abstract

Section: Notessupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Social Conflict and Outgroup Sentiment in South Korea: Evidence from the Yemeni Anti-Refugee Campaign

Kim

2023

J. East Asian Stud.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although previous work has considered the short-term effects of terrorism on attitudes toward the targeted group, it is unclear how sustained such effects may be. For example, Shanaah et al investigated the short-term effects of the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks on prejudice by applying regression discontinuity analysis to a rolling sample in the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS) (

8,180

) ( 20 ). In the 90 days following the attacks, there was an 8% increase in warmth ratings of Muslims ( 20 ).…”

Section: Theoretical Interest Of the Long-term Marginal Effect Of The...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, Shanaah et al investigated the short-term effects of the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks on prejudice by applying regression discontinuity analysis to a rolling sample in the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS) (

8,180

) ( 20 ). In the 90 days following the attacks, there was an 8% increase in warmth ratings of Muslims ( 20 ). Notably, the authors observed that the initial boost to Muslim acceptance declined among political conservatives.…”

Section: Theoretical Interest Of the Long-term Marginal Effect Of The...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term causal effects of far-right terrorism in New Zealand

Bulbulia,

Afzali,

Yogeeswaran

et al. 2023

PNAS Nexus

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Christchurch mosque attacks in 2019, committed by a radical right-wing extremist, resulted in the tragic loss of 51 lives. Following these events, there was a noticable rise in societal acceptance of Muslim minorities. Comparable transient reactions have been observed elsewhere. However, the critical questions remain: can these effects endure? Are enduring effects evident across the political spectrum? It is challenging to answer such questions because identifying long-term causal effects requires estimating unobserved attitudinal trajectories without the attacks. Here, we use six preattack waves of Muslim acceptance responses from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS) to infer missing counterfactual trajectories (NZAVS cohort 2012, N=4,865; replicated in 2013 cohort, N=7,894). We find (1) the attacks initially boosted Muslim acceptance; (2) the magnitude of the initial Muslim acceptance boost was similar across the political spectrum; (3) no changes were observed in negative control groups; and (4) two- and three-year effects varied by baseline political orientation: liberal acceptance was stable, conservative acceptance grew relative to the counterfactual trend. Overall, the attacks added five years of growth in Muslim acceptance, with no regression to preattack levels over time. Continued growth among conservatives highlights the attack’s failure to divide society. These results demonstrate the utility of combining methods for causal inference with national-scale panel data to answer psychological questions of basic human concern.

show abstract