Explaining prejudice toward Americans and Europeans in Egypt: Closed-mindedness and conservatism mediate effects of religious fundamentalism

Sadowski F, Bohner G. Explaining prejudice toward Americans and Europeans in Egypt: Closed-mindedness and conservatism mediate effects of religious fundamentalism. International Journal of Conflict and Violence. 2016;10(1):110-126.Using an Arab-Muslim sample of 160 Egyptian citizens from the greater Cairo area, we examined the role of religion in prejudice toward Americans and Europeans. When religious fundamentalism was tested concurrently with general religiousness, only religious fundamentalism significantly predicted prejudices toward both Americans and Europeans. In a second step we included closed-mindedness (CM), a facet of need for cognitive closure, and conservatism (RCON), a facet of right-wing authoritarianism, to explain the religion-prejudice link. Instead of using the two variables as parallel mediators, we assumed CM to be a predictor of RCON. Hence, in a first model we applied CM and RCON as serial mediators of the religious fundamentalism-prejudice relation. In a second model where fundamentalism was predicted by CM and RCON prejudice remained the outcome variable. RCON had stronger effects than CM across all models. The effect of religious fundamentalism was marginal or not significant when CM and RCON served as preceding variables in the second model, suggesting that they may be more decisive than religious fundamentalism in the development of prejudice. Participants distinguished between Americans and Europeans, with Americans the more relevant outgroup in the religious context