Is Subjective Ill-Being Related to Islamophobia in Germany? In Search for Moderators

Abstract

Is subjective ill-being, defined as the inverse of subjective well-being, related to Islamophobia in Germany? We conducted a study guided by two goals to answer this question. The first goal was to test the hypothesis that subjective ill-being is associated with Islamophobia. The second goal, contingent on the results of testing for the association between subjective ill-being and Islamophobia, was to test a set of variables presumed to moderate this relationship—positive and negative contact with Muslims, right-wing political views, political participation, the importance of political life, and cultural diversity orientation. Data from the GESIS Panel, a probability-based panel representative of the German-speaking population aged between 18 and 70 years permanently residing in Germany, were used to test the study hypotheses. The data provided support for the hypothesis that subjective ill-being is indeed associated with Islamophobia in Germany (r = .12, p < .01). The data provided support for only one of the moderator hypothesis, namely cultural diversity orientation. Specifically, the data showed that the relationship between subjective ill-being and Islamophobia is stronger for those who have low (rather than high) cultural diversity orientation.