Cultural Outgroup Research Articles

The Role of Networked Narratives in Amplifying or Mitigating Intergroup Prejudice: A YouTube Case Study

This purpose of this research is to understand the role of networked narratives in social media in modulating viewer prejudice toward ethnic neighborhoods. We designed experimental videos on YouTube based on intergroup contact theory and narrative frameworks aimed at (1) gaining knowledge, (2) reducing anxiety, and (3) fostering empathy. Despite consistent storytelling across the videos, we observed significant variations in viewer emotions, especially in replies to comments. We hypothesized that these discrepancies could be explained by the influence of the surrounding digital network on the narrative’s reception. Two-stage research was conducted to understand this phenomenon. First, automated emotion analysis on user comments was conducted to identify the varying emotions. Then, we explored contextual factors surrounding each video on YouTube, focusing on algorithmic curation inferred from traffic sources, region, and search keywords. Findings revealed that negative algorithmic curation and user interactivity result in overall negative viewer emotion, largely driven by video placement and recommendations. However, videos with higher traffic originating from viewers who had watched the storyteller’s other videos result in more positive sentiments and longer visits. This suggests that consistent exposure within the channel can foster more positive acceptance of cultural outgroups by building trust and reducing anxiety. There is the need, then, for storytellers to curate discussions to mitigate prejudice in digital contexts.

Love Thy Neighbor: Exploring Religious and Social Openness among Prospective Theologians in Germany and Turkey

Amidst increasing globalization and religious diversity, acknowledging and embracing openness towards religious and/or cultural others has become crucial for societal cohesion and international relations. Theological scholars, holding significant potential in mitigating inter-religious and intercultural prejudices, can play a pivotal role in addressing this challenge. However, it is acknowledged that theologians themselves may harbor such biases. This study, conducted within the framework of the Religious Openness Hypothesis, employed an online questionnaire among theology students, seen as future multipliers of religiosity, in Germany and Turkey (N = 513) using convenience sampling. The results reveal the consistent relation of religiosity to all forms of prejudice among German Christians, with a linked defense against secularism potentially leading to self-isolation and the protection of their own worldview against religious or cultural outgroups. In contrast, the (generally high) prejudice among Turkish Muslims appears to be rooted not primarily in religiosity or defense against secularism but in fundamentalism and, most likely, in other socio-cultural factors such as politics and education. For both subsamples, religiosity was positively linked with xenosophia, particularly when accounting for fundamentalism. The article concludes by proposing curriculum implications for universities and schools in both cultural contexts.

Violent Conflict and Hostility Towards Ethnoreligious Outgroups in Nigeria

ABSTRACT This study examined the effect of exposure to violent conflict on hostility towards ethnic and religious outgroups among Nigeria’s population and among its two major religious groups (i.e., Christians and Muslims). Violent conflict had a robust positive effect on outgroup hostility among the Nigerian population and among Christians. A plausible mechanism behind this finding is that the threat posed by violent conflict strengthens ingroup cohesion, erodes trust in outgroup members, and makes intergroup boundaries salient. This is especially so when the opposite party to the conflict constitutes a distinct cultural outgroup. The main conflict affecting Christians involves nomadic pastoralists of Fulani ethnicity, who are Muslims. Among Muslims, violent conflict rather had a weak positive effect on outgroup hostility that was not robust to alternative operationalizations of outgroup hostility. The null effect might be because the main conflict affecting Muslims—the Boko Haram insurgency—does not involve Christians. A significant number of Muslims are also affected by conflicts involving nomadic Fulani pastoralists.

Valuing high arousal negative states increases negative responses toward outgroups across cultures.

Previous research demonstrates that the more people experience anger, fear, and other high arousal negative states (HAN) on average, the more prejudice and harm they express toward outgroups. Here we demonstrate that valuing HAN-above and beyond actually experiencing HAN-increases people's likelihood of engaging in harm toward cultural outgroups in everyday life. In Study 1, U.S. European Americans (N = 227) read hypothetical scenarios in which a member of another cultural group at school, work, or home made them uncomfortable. As predicted, the more participants ideally wanted to feel HAN, the more negatively they responded to the outgroup member in these scenarios (i.e., the more HAN they felt, the more they viewed harmful actions as appropriate, and the more likely they were to engage in these actions). To assess generalizability, in Study 2, we provide evidence from Canada (n = 162) and Taiwan (n = 170) that despite cultural differences in the valuation of specific types of HAN, wanting to feel HAN still predicted negative responses toward cultural outgroups in both cultures. These findings raise the intriguing possibility that reducing people's valuation of HAN might play an important role in increasing tolerance of cultural diversity in multicultural societies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Adolescents' Evaluations of those who Challenge Exclusive and Inclusive Peer Norms.

Early and middle adolescents' judgments and reasonings about peers who challenge exclusive and inclusive peer group norms were examined across three studies with varying intergroup contexts. Study 1 participants included (N = 199) non-Arab American participants responding to an Arab American/non-Arab American intergroup context. Study 2 included (N = 123) non-Asian and (N = 105) Asian American participants responding to an Asian/non-Asian American intergroup context. Study 3 included (N = 275) Lebanese participants responding to an American/Lebanese intergroup context. Across all three studies participants responded to ingroup and outgroup deviant group members who challenged their peer groups to either include or exclude an outgroup peer with similar interests. Findings indicated that adolescents approved of peers who challenged exclusive peer norms and advocated for inclusion of an ethnic and cultural outgroup, and disapproved of peers who challenged inclusive group norms and advocated for exclusion. Non-Arab and non-Asian American adolescents displayed ingroup bias when evaluating a deviant advocating for exclusion. Additionally, age differences were found among Asian American adolescents. Findings will be discussed in light of intergroup research on those who challenge injustices.

Raising Undergraduate Students’ Level of Academic Readiness through Teaching Intercultural Communication

In this qualitative action research study, the purpose was to explore if the integration of an intercultural communication (ICC) module into an undergraduate English course in Kuwait could improve the preparation of students for their future studies and jobs. The study focused on the insufficient acceptance of cultural diversity and its influence on university students. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, and field notes, where content and thematic analysis was conducted. Four themes were yielded: 1) pre-intervention: culture and ICC as interpersonal conflict without holistic contextualization; 2) post-intervention: enhanced perspective-taking and attitude; 3) post-intervention: better engagement with cultural out-groups; and 4) increased inquisitiveness about other cultures.

“I disagreed with a lot of values”: Exploring Black immigrant agency in ethnic-racial socialization

Ethnic-racial socialization is a mechanism through which immigrant parents instill in their children a sense of pride in their culture while preparing them for negative experiences with racial and cultural out-groups. For Black immigrant parents, this can include promoting a wariness of Black Americans in their children. Through this lens, we investigated an understudied intercultural dynamic via interviews with 12 first- and second-generation African and Caribbean immigrants. Using deductive and inductive analyses, we first examined the socialization messages they received about Black Americans from their parents, finding that in addition to messages inculcating ethnic and cultural pride, the participants also heard warnings about affiliation with Black Americans. Those messages relied on personal experiences and harmful stereotypes. Second, emergent from the data were examples of the ways the participants rejected their parents’ warnings. Experiences outside of the home appeared to influence views that were alternative to their parents. This novel finding provides avenues for future research investigating Black immigrants’ paths to a sense of connection or distancing from Black Americans.

Fusion of “You and Me”: Cultural Mixing Promotes Intergroup Psychological Compatibility

Previous research has mainly examined individuals’ attitudes to cultural mixing per se, and rarely examined the attitudes to the outgroup involved in cultural mixing. Exposure to ingroup–outgroup cultural mixing may be an indirect intergroup contact, which can promote individuals’ psychological compatibility toward the corresponding cultural outgroup. We measured Chinese Yi undergraduates’ experience of Yi-Tibetan cultural mixing in Study 1 and found it was significantly correlated with psychological compatibility toward Tibetans. We then used a between-subjects design and experimentally manipulated Yi participants’ exposure to cultural mixing to verify the causal effect of exposure to Yi-Dai cultural mixing on psychological compatibility toward Dai (the Yi and Dai are two of the 55 ethnic minorities in China from different provinces and have their own unique culture; Study 2) and the mediating role of perceived connection (Studies 3 and 4). These findings suggest that exposure to cultural mixing facilitates intergroup psychological compatibility, and this beneficial effect is mediated by perceived connection.

“They Think We Are a Threat to Their Culture”: Meta-Cultural Threat Fuels Willingness and Endorsement of Extremist Violence against the Cultural Outgroup

Far-right political parties in Europe regularly portray Muslims and Islam as backward and a symbolic threat to secular and/or Christian European culture. Similarly, Islamist groups regularly portra ...

Appreciating vs venerating cultural outgroups

PurposeCosmopolitanism and xenocentrism denote distinct individual orientations toward cultural outgroups. The former considers an individual’s openness to cultural diversity and ability to navigate through intercultural environments, whereas the latter describes an individual’s feelings of admiration or preference for specific cultural outgroup(s), over his/her ingroup. Few studies have simultaneously examined these constructs and fewer still have considered these within a nomological framework of key predictors (i.e. basic psychological needs) and practical outcomes (e.g. influentialness and friendships across different groups). The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe authors hypothesized a series of relationships of various antecedents and outcomes of cosmopolitanism and xenocentrism, and tested these conjectures using survey data from Canadians (n=238) and Americans (n=239).FindingsThe findings support the psychometric robustness of our tripartite operationalization of xenocentrism, and clearly distinguish this construct from cosmopolitanism. Beyond confirming earlier findings, the authors illuminate several novel relationships (e.g. between basic psychological needs, cosmopolitanism and xenocentrism), and elucidate the role played by a key personality dimension, neuroticism, in mediating the relationships between basic psychological needs and the two outgroup orientations.Research limitations/implicationsSamples of this study are drawn from North America and a cross-sectional research design is used.Originality/valueWhereas for xenocentric consumers admiration of one or more foreign culture(s) displaces customary preferences for one’s own cultural group, cosmopolitan consumers are able to embrace outside cultures without disaffection from their sociocultural ingroup. Given the obvious repercussions of these differences for targeting international consumer segments and for positioning brands across borders, our research has numerous practical applications as well as theoretical implications.

Children judge others based on their food choices

Individuals and cultures share some commonalities in food preferences, yet cuisines also differ widely across social groups. Eating is a highly social phenomenon; however, little is known about the judgments children make about other people’s food choices. Do children view conventional food choices as normative and consequently negatively evaluate people who make unconventional food choices? In five experiments, 5-year-old children were shown people who ate conventional and unconventional foods, including typical food items paired in unconventional ways. In Experiment 1, children preferred conventional foods and conventional food eaters. Experiment 2 suggested a link between expectations of conventionality and native/foreign status; children in the United States thought that English speakers were relatively more likely to choose conventional foods than French speakers. Yet, children in Experiments 3 and 4 judged people who ate unconventional foods as negatively as they judged people who ate canonical disgust elicitors and nonfoods, even when considering people from a foreign culture. Children in Experiment 5 were more likely to assign conventional foods to cultural ingroup members than to cultural outgroup members; nonetheless, they thought that no one was likely to eat the nonconventional items. These results demonstrate that children make normative judgments about other people’s food choices and negatively evaluate people across groups who deviate from conventional eating practices.

APPRECIATING VS. VENERATING CULTURAL OUTGROUPS: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COSMOPOLITANISM AND XENOCENTRISM

In a globalizing world, characterized by increasing diversity and exposure to other societies, understanding individuals’ orientations towards cultural outgroups has both theoretical and practical relevance. When cultural boundaries blur, individuals are afforded the opportunity to reshape their identity and affiliate themselves with multiple groups. However, globalization may also cause value conflict and moral confusion as people face ideas that challenge pre-existing notions. Globalization is therefore intertwined with psychology. Whereas (consumer) ethnocentrism and other exclusionary reactions (animosity, nationalism, xenophobia, etc.) have been the subject of innumerable studies, inclusionary constructs such as cosmopolitanism and particularly, xenocentrism, have only recently gained traction. Cosmopolitanism and xenocentrism denote distinct individual orientations towards cultural outgroups. The former considers an individual’s openness to cultural diversity and ability to navigate through intercultural environments, whereas the latter describes an individual’s feelings of admiration or preference for specific cultural outgroup(s), over their ingroup. Few studies have simultaneously examined these constructs and fewer still have considered these within a nomological framework of key predictors (i.e., basic psychological needs: need for autonomy, relatedness, and competence) and practical outcomes (i.e., cross-group friendships, influentialness, environmental behaviours, maladaptive health behaviours). We hypothesized a series of relationships of various antecedents and outcomes of cosmopolitanism and xenocentrism, and tested these conjectures using survey data from Canadians (n=238) and Americans (n=239). The findings support the psychometric robustness of our operationalization of xenocentrism, and clearly distinguish this construct from cosmopolitanism. Beyond confirming earlier findings (e.g., how proenvironmental behaviours are predicted by cosmopolitanism and xenocentrism), we illuminate several novel relationships (e.g., between basic psychological needs and cosmopolitanism), and elucidate the role played by a key personality dimension, neuroticism, in mediating the relationships between basic psychological needs, and the two outgroup orientations. Theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future directions are elucidated.

Will Americans Vote for Muslims? Cultural Outgroup Antipathy, Candidate Religion, and U.S. Voting Behavior

AbstractWe assess how likely Americans are to support political candidates who are Muslim, and the extent to which support for Muslim candidates is structured by “cultural outgroup antipathy”—generalized antipathy targeting cultural outgroups. We employ two survey experiments included in the 2007 and 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies that juxtapose a hypothetical state legislative candidate's Muslim faith with Arab ethnicity, African American race, and both Democratic and Republican party affiliation. Identifying a candidate as Muslim significantly reduces voter support and that reduction is largest among people with higher levels of cultural outgroup antipathy. The effect is consistent regardless of whether the candidate is also identified as being Arab or African American or is just presented as a Muslim. We also find that cultural outgroup antipathy diminished electoral support for same-party Muslim candidates among Democrats but not among Republicans.

The BNP in Blazers? A Comparison of Online Discussions of Followers of the British National Party and the UK Independence Party

This study compares the discursive practices of online followers of the British National Party (BNP) and the UK Independence Party (UKIP). In the past, UKIP distanced itself from the more radical BNP. Nevertheless, the parties mobilize from the same support base. A comparison of the comments of Facebook followers of both parties provides an insight in the similarities and differences in the ideology and concerns of supporters. Followers of both parties address the similar issues – immigration, Islam, populism, Euroscepticism – in their debates. However, they differ in how strongly they emphasize these issues. Islam is the most prominent topic amongst BNP supporters, whereas UKIP supporters primarily address support of their party. Supporters of both parties address distinct issues, such as the Syrian conflict and support for Putin on the BNP page; and the discussion on the Union Flag on the UKIP page. The findings suggest that UKIP supporters are less extreme in framing cultural outgroups. The study shows how topic models can form a useful method for categorizing large amounts of textual data.

Assessing Emotional Vocalizations From Cultural In-Group and Out-Group Depends on Oxytocin

Group-living animals, humans included, produce vocalizations like screams, growls, laughs, and victory calls. Accurately decoding such emotional vocalizations serves both individual and group functioning, suggesting that (i) vocalizations from in-group members may be privileged, in terms of speed and accuracy of processing, and (ii) such processing may depend on evolutionary ancient neural circuitries that sustain and enable cooperation with and protection of the in-group against outside threat. Here, we examined this possibility and focused on the neuropeptide oxytocin. Dutch participants self-administered oxytocin or placebo (double-blind, placebo-controlled study design) and responded to emotional vocalizations produced by cultural in-group members (Native Dutch) and cultural out-group members (Namibian Himba). In-group vocalizations were recognized faster and more accurately than out-group vocalizations, and oxytocin enhanced accurate decoding of specific vocalizations from one’s cultural out-group—triumph and anger. We discuss possible explanations and suggest avenues for new research.

Hög generell tillit och låg tolerans mot främlingar?

In light of Sweden’s exceptionally high levels of generalised trust, a widely argued view is that this country is well equipped to counterbalance contemporary challenges of xenophobia and build trust between diverse groups. However, while trust remains at high levels in Sweden, the same, somewhat paradoxically, goes for xenophobic attitudes. Therefore, the main question addressed in this article is why many Swedes report that they trust ‘most people in general’ while simultaneously displaying high levels of xenophobia. Drawing on unique survey-data, the article presents three main answers. First, the article shows that Swedish respondents place much more trust in their cultural in-group – which they tend to equate with ‘most people’ – than in their cultural out-group. Second, when relating these different measures of trust to respondents’ degree of xenophobia, on the one hand, and their party preferences, on the other hand, the article shows that an overwhelming majority of the electorate report that they trust people from Western Europe, while only a minority report that they tolerate and trust non-Europeans. Third, and most crucially, the article finds that high trust in the cultural out-group is associated with tolerance, whereas high trust in the in-group instead appears to breed xenophobia.

Neural correlates of emotion perception depending on culture and gaze direction

A person’s cultural background as well as their gaze direction have been identified as relevant factors that influence the behavioural and neural processing of emotional expressions. However, research on their combined influence is sparse. Here, we manipulated the cultural background and gaze direction of emotion-encoders to investigate the interaction of both factors during the neural processing of emotions. Stimuli consisted of short video sequences showing faces that displayed either direct or averted gaze, expressed either anger or happiness, and represented either cultural in-group (European faces) or cultural out-group members (Asian faces). While undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging, a group of German participants rated the stimuli with respect to their valence. Results revealed that when anger was expressed with direct gaze, more activation was found in the dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices in response to cultural out-group compared to in-group members. However, when anger was expressed with averted gaze, activity increased in the amygdala and the striatum in response to cultural in-group compared to out-group members. With respect to happiness, enhanced neural activation in medial and lateral prefrontal cortical areas was associated with the processing of cultural in-group compared to out-group members expressing happiness with direct gaze. These findings indicate a complex interplay between culture, gaze direction and the valence of emotions.

"Construals of “Diversity”: Examining Frameworks for Justifying, Defining, and Perceiving Diversity"

Four papers examine the multiple frames for justifying, defining, and perceiving diversity and their implications for workplace harmony and equality. First, Apfelbaum and Amengual examine the three most commonly used frames to justify the need for diversity: a business case, a moral case, and a hybrid case that combines the two previous justifications. They show that support for business and moral justifications is hydraulic. Furthermore, this hydraulic relationship can lead hybrid justifications to undermine people’s support for diversity-related issues. Second, Opie, Ho, Akinola, Unzueta, Castel, and Brief investigate the consequences of broadening definitions of diversity. They show that definitions of diversity have broadened from primarily being about the inclusion of underrepresented groups to being more about the celebration of individual differences. They find that these broader definitions can undermine efforts to promote workplace equality. Third, Siy and Phillips show how social groups commonly labeled as both racial and cultural groups, such as Blacks and Asians, are not perceived equally as racial and cultural. Furthermore, perceiving Blacks as a cultural group causes Whites to believe differences associated with Blacks are more legitimate than perceiving Blacks as a racial group. To conclude, Chao, Yao, and Fu examine how essentialist beliefs about cultural diversity affect negotiations across cultures. They demonstrate that Hong Kongers who hold strong essentialist beliefs about culture are less trusting and obtain worse deals when negotiation with members of a cultural outgroup compared to Hong Kongers who hold weak essentialist beliefs. Overall, these four papers introduce new frameworks for understanding the ways people frame diversity so that organizations can harness its power to bring harmony and equality for all. Seeing Race versus Culture: Examining when Group Differences are Justified Presenter: John Oliver Siy; Columbia U. Presenter: Katherine W. Phillips; Columbia U.

Rethinking Value Violation: Priming Religion Increases Prejudice in Singaporean Christians and Buddhists

Ingroup religious priming has been shown to increase prejudice in American Christians, but it is currently unknown whether this effect can be generalized to other religions and cultures. The present research assessed the effects of religious priming on attitudes toward religious and cultural outgroups in Christian and Buddhist students at a Singapore university. Both Christians and Buddhists primed with religious ingroup words demonstrated more negative pretest to posttest attitude change toward homosexuals than those primed with neutral words. This effect remained even when statistically controlling for levels of right-wing authoritarianism and spirituality. These results indicate that religious priming affects Christians and Buddhists in the same way, promoting bias towards culturally relevant outgroups even in the absence of religious value-violation. This suggests that religion may exert its prejudicial effects indirectly through activation of associated cultural value systems, such as traditionalism/conservatism.

Voting behavior is reflected in amygdala response across cultures

Voting to determine one's leaders is among the most important decisions we make, yet little is known about the brain's role in how we come to these decisions. Behavioral studies have indicated that snap judgments of political candidates' faces can predict election outcomes but that the traits that lead to these judgments differ across cultures. Here we sought to investigate the neural basis for these judgments. American and Japanese natives performed simulated voting judgments of actual American and Japanese political candidates while neural activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Candidates for whom participants chose to vote elicited stronger responses in the bilateral amygdala than candidates for whom participants chose not to vote. This was true regardless of either the participant's culture or the target's culture, suggesting that these voting decisions provoked the same neural response cross-culturally. In addition, we observed a participant culture by target culture interaction in the bilateral amygdala. American and Japanese participants both showed a stronger response to cultural outgroup faces than they did to cultural in group faces, however this was unrelated to their voting decisions. These data provide insight to the mechanisms that underlie our snap judgments of others when making voting decisions and provide a neural correlate to cross-cultural consensus in social inferences.