Seeking and avoiding contact with Muslims at a Hijab Stall: Evidence for multilayer, multi‐determined solidarity, courage, apathy, and moral outrage

Abstract

Intergroup contact is key to social cohesion, yet psychological barriers block engagement with diversity even when contact opportunities are abundant. We lack an advanced understanding of contact seeking because intergroup contact is often an independent variable in research, and studies on contact seeking have favoured experimental probing of selected factors or measured only broad behavioural intentions. This research carried out the first ecological tests of a novel multilayer-multivariate framework to contact seeking/avoiding. These tests were centred on a Muslim-led community contact-based initiative with visible support from local authorities following a terrorist attack. Non-Muslim Australian women (N = 1,347) contributed field data on their situated contact motivations, choices, and attendance at an intercultural educational stall; many (N = 559) completed a profiling test battery. Among those who responded to the initiative invite, the rate of taking up the high-salience contact opportunity in this heated setting was high and reflected multiple approach/avoidance motivations. Contact seeking/avoiding was not just allophilia/prejudice; it presented as new typologies of politicized solidarity, courage, apathy, and moral outrage. While intergroup predictors were significant across all profiling analyses, intrapersonal and interpersonal predictors also regularly contributed to explain variance in non-Muslims' contact motivations and choices, confirming their multilayer-multivariate nature.

Keeping Apart on the Playground: Construction of Informal Segregation on Public Playgrounds in Multiethnic Neighborhoods

“…Our work takes a different approach, examining how the roles that people occupy (in this case, mothering) shape the ways in which they use a public space and hence afford or constrain opportunities for contact. Furthermore, we found that despite the playgrounds’ nature as semipublic spaces where visitors are meant to socialize with each other, their actual use often involved premeditated meetings with existing friends, offering the mothers relaxed peer contact for the relatively brief time spent on the playground (see Al Ramiah et al 2015; Paolini et al 2022). Thus, our results support previous research findings that outgroup avoidance derives not only from intergroup processes but also from personal preferences or passivity (Mackinnon et al 2011; Paolini et al 2022).…”

“…Ingroup company is also preferred because it consumes less resources than intergroup interaction (Al Ramiah et al 2015). Therefore, outgroup avoidance can result from apathy rather than hostility (Paolini et al 2022).…”

Seeking Others’ Sounds: Predictors of Voluntary Exposure to Outgroup Music

“…However, the contact-seeking literature has neglected mediated contact. Following Paolini et al's (2021) strategy, we adopt a multi-layer-multivariate framework by examining clusters of variables at the intrapersonal (e.g., personality), interpersonal (e.g., need for uniqueness), interactional (e.g., past intercultural contact experiences), and intergroup (e.g., diversity attitudes) levels. We organize our predictors into three categories of variables likely to predict approaching outgroup media: personality, attitudinal, and past contact experiences.…”

“…Such patterns are clear in the interpersonal contact literature (e.g., Paolini et al, 2021), but have not been examined with media contact. We also predict that past intergroup experiences will influence outgroup media exposure choices.…”

“…People with more (and more positive) intercultural and intergroup experiences should be more likely to expose themselves to outgroup musical stimuli, while those with fewer or negative prior contact experiences will be less likely to do so. For example, Paolini et al (2021) found that non-Muslim Australian women with past positive contact experiences sought opportunities to learn about the hijab from Muslim women, while those with negative prior contact avoided those situations (see also Rozich et al, 2018). Likewise, given its aversive nature, anxiety is likely to direct people away from seeking intergroup experiences (Bettencourt et al, 2019).…”