Political Orientation and Prejudice Toward Arab and Muslim Men

According to Dovidio and Gaertner’s (1998) integrated model of racism, political conservatives are more likely to show modern racism, whereas political liberals are more likely to show aversive racism. In this study, we examined prejudice towards Arab and Muslim men. 207 college students and 140 MTurk participants read one of four “news stories” describing a minor crime in which the perpetrator was either a White Christian, White Muslim, Arab Christian, or Arab Muslim man. Participants then rated levels of guilt, attributional factors, and severity of punishment, as well as political orientation. For the SONA participants, there were no significant interactions between political orientation and race or religion on levels of guilt or severity of punishment. However, compared to liberals and moderates, conservatives viewed the White targets’ actions as more due to personal factors than the Arab targets’. For the mTurk participants, regardless of political orientation, the Christian targets were perceived as guiltier than the Muslim targets. Compared to liberals and conservatives, moderates were more punitive toward the Arab targets. Compared to moderates and conservatives, liberals were more punitive toward the White targets