Ali Mashuri

Intergroup Helping in Response to Separatism

Despite its prevalence and widespread media coverage, separatism as a phenomenon is barely covered in psychological investigations, and the majority’s response to separatism has been completely ignored. We present two studies in which we investigated the notion that separatist movements threaten the continuation of the national identity, as well as the nation’s economic position. Moreover, we hypothesized and found that members of the majority group respond to continuation threat by supporting government measures to help the separatist group. Javanese students who were induced to believe that existing separatist movements in West Papua (Study 1, N = 322) or Aceh (Study 2, N = 180) were currently increasing their efforts to gain independence were more willing to support these groups than participants who believed these movements were dormant. Moreover, this effect was mediated by continuation threat but not economic threat. These results demonstrate the possibility of a peaceful response to separatism threat.

When Common Identities Reduce Between-Group Helping

Emphasizing a common group identity is often suggested as a way to promote between-group helping. But recently, researchers have identified a set of strategic motives for helping other groups, including the desire to present the own group as warm and generous. When the motive for helping is strategic, a salient common identity should reduce the willingness to help another group, because the help no longer communicates a quality of the ingroup (only of the common group). The authors tested this hypothesis in two experiments, in which they assessed beliefs about helping (Study 1) and actual helping through behavioral observation (Study 2). The results fully supported the predictions, demonstrating that a common identity is not a universal tool for the promotion of prosocial behavior. The studies also illustrate the strategic nature of between-group helping, in which acts that appear prosocial on the surface are in fact intended to enhance the ingroup’s image.

The Effect of Intergroup Threat and Social Identity Salience on the Belief in Conspiracy Theories over Terrorism in Indonesia: Collective Angst as a Mediator

The present study tested how intergroup threat (high versus low) and social identity as a Muslim (salient versus non-salient) affected belief in conspiracy theories. Data among Indonesian Muslim students (N = 139) from this study demonstrated that intergroup threat and social identity salience interacted to influence belief in conspiracy theories. High intergroup threat triggered greater belief in conspiracy theories than low intergroup threat, more prominently in the condition in which participants’ Muslim identity was made salient. Collective angst also proved to mediate the effect of intergroup threat on the belief. However, in line with the prediction, evidence of this mediation effect of collective angst was only on the salient social identity condition. Discussions on these research findings build on both theoretical and practical implications.

Demonising the Victim: Seeking the Answer for How a Group as the Violent Victim is Blamed

The current study aims to understand victim blaming of Ahmadiyya group by majority Sunni Islam in Indonesia. We included ingroup essentialisation, outgroup essentialisation, identity undermining and belief in conspiracy theory as predictors of victim blaming. Results of a survey among 147 Muslims majority Sunni Islam shows that the relationship between identity undermining and victim blaming is stronger for individuals holding ingroup de-essentialisation compared to those with ingroup essentialisation. Moreover, belief in conspiracy theory was found to mediate the effect of the interaction variable of identity undermining and ingroup essentialisation on victim blaming. In addition, outgroup essentialisation was found correlated with belief in conspiracy theory but did not play a significant role to moderate the effect of identity undermining on belief in conspiracy theory and victim blaming. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

When Agony Begets Zealotry: The Differential Role of Globalization Threats in Mediating the Effect of Competitive Victimhood on Muslims’ Religious Fundamentalism

The current investigations examine how globalization signifying either identity threat or realistic threat has a differential role in mediating the effect of competitive victim-hood on Muslims’ religious fundamentalism. Study 1 (N = 119) revealed that identity globalization threat and not realistic globalization threat significantly mediated the effect of competitive victimhood on Muslims’ religious fundamentalism. Study 2 (N = 155) successfully replicated the finding in Study 1. Moreover, Study 2 also revealed that such mediating role of identity globalization threat was stronger among participants perceiving Muslims as having high than low group entitativity, which refers to the extent to which Muslims as a group are considered to be a one, homogenous collective rather than an aggregation of individuals. Theoretical implications for understanding situational or social factors of Muslims’ religious fundamentalism are discussed, as are strategies to reduce competitive victimhood among members of this religious group.

Predicting Support for Reconciliation in Separatist Conflict

The current research examined two fundamental motives that could lie at the root of separatist groups’ desire to be independent from the nonseparatist majority: the need to maintain the own subgroup identity and the need to preserve power vis-à-vis the majority. These motives were examined in two studies through surveys among samples of indigenous people in West Papua (N = 201 and N = 248), where separatist movements are actively striving for secession from the Republic of Indonesia. As expected, identity threat increased perceptions of injustice in both studies, whereas power threat increased the need for subgroup empowerment. Perceived injustice and need for subgroup empowerment, in turn, decreased support for reconciliation with the majority. The current research is the first to examine how identity and power motives combine in predicting separatist intentions. The studies reveal important insights that can contribute to the reconciliation of separatist conflict.

How morality threat promotes reconciliation in separatist conflict: A majority group perspective:

We examined how the perception that separatist groups threaten the majority’s moral identity impacts the latter group’s support for reconciliation in separatist conflict. Two studies were conducted in Indonesia, where separatist conflict is rife. Javanese students (representing the nonseparatist majority) responded surveys regarding separatist conflicts in Aceh (Study 1, N = 679) or West Papua (Study 2, N = 500). As expected, perceived threat to the majority’s moral identity increased this particular group’s reconciliatory attitudes (Study 1), emotions, and behaviours (Study 2), through increased compensatory needs for social acceptance and restoration of moral image. These findings underline the importance of moral identity dynamics in separatist conflict. Moreover, they reveal that the majority, despite its dominant position, can experience morality threat from separatist groups which can foster positive attitudes towards the reconciliation process.

You Are the Real Terrorist and We Are Just Your Puppet: Using Individual and Group Factors to Explain Indonesian Muslims’ Attributions of Causes of Terrorism

The current study investigates the role of individual and intergroup factors in predicting Muslims’ tendency to attribute domestic terrorism in Indonesia to an external cause (i.e., The West) or an internal cause (i.e., radical Islamist groups). The results (N = 308) showed that intergroup factors of symbolic threat and realistic threat directly increased the external attribution and conversely decreased the internal attribution. Within the context of the current research, symbolic threat refers to Muslims’ perception that the norms and values of the West undermine Islamic identity. Realistic threat denotes Muslims’ perception that the economy and technology of the West undermine Islamic power. The individual factor of Islamic fundamentalism, which has to do with Muslims’ belief in the literal interpretation of and strict guidelines to Islamic doctrines, indirectly predicted both external attribution and internal attribution of terrorism as hypothesized, via the extent to which Muslims perceived the West as posing a symbolic threat, but not a realistic threat to Islamic existence. Uncertainty avoidance, a cultural dimension that describes the extent to which people view clear instructions as a pivotal source of concern to deal with societal problems, also significantly increased perceived symbolic threat and realistic threat, and this cultural dimension mediated the effect of Islamic fundamentalism on each of the intergroup threats. Finally, we found that the level of Islamic fundamentalism was dependent upon cognitive response, but not emotional response to mortality salience. The cognitive response to mortality salience denotes what Muslims are thinking about in coping with their own death whereas the emotional response denotes what Muslims are feeling about such issue. In particular, we found the cognitive response, but not the emotional response to mortality salience significantly gave rise to Muslims’ Islamic fundamentalism. These findings shed light on the importance of combining individual factors and group factors in explicating the dynamics of Muslims’ tendency to make attributions of causes of domestic terrorism. We discuss theoretical implications and study limitations, as well as practical actions policy makers could conduct to deal with Muslims’ Islamic fundamentalism and reduce the extent to which this particular group perceives the West as threatening their existence.

A Majority Group’s Perspective-taking Towards a Minority Group: Its Antecedents and Impact on Support for Minority Helping

This research investigates the impact of perspective-taking on a majority group’s support for government action to help a minority group. Data among a sample of Indonesian Muslims (N = 380), representing a religious majority group in Indonesia, showed that perspective-taking was a strong positive predictor of Muslims’ support for government action to help Christian minority. Relative Muslim prototypicality vis-à-vis Christians depressed perspective-taking. Contrariwise, inclusive victimhood reflecting a perception that Muslims are equally afflicted relative to Christians in intergroup conflicts, involving both groups, promoted perspective-taking. Relative Muslim prototypicality was augmented by the extent to which this majority group glorified Islam and was motivated to protect Islamic power. However, inclusive victimhood instead attenuated relative Muslim prototypicality. These findings suggest the importance of enhancing inclusive victimhood, given its impact in promoting perspective-taking which is beneficial to the majority’s support for minority helping.

The Role of Identity Subversion in Structuring the Effects of Intergroup Threats and Negative Emotions on Belief in Anti-West Conspiracy Theories in Indonesia

Indonesian Muslims believe in conspiracies, suggesting that the West is behind terrorist attacks in Indonesia. This belief persists despite overwhelming evidence that Islamist radicals were the true perpetrators. The current research examines the role intergroup threats and negative emotions have in moulding this type of conspiratorial belief, and how this role is dependent upon the level of Muslims’ perceived identity subversion, that is, a sense that the Western ways of life have fundamentally changed Islamic identity. Data from 246 Indonesian Muslim students revealed that negative emotions of dejection-agitation towards Western ways of life significantly mediated the effects of both symbolic and realistic threats on belief in anti-West conspiracy theories. The effects of intergroup threats and dejection-agitation on belief in conspiracy theories, as predicted, were contingent on Muslim participants’ perceived identity subversion. Higher symbolic threat, realistic threat and dejection-agitation, indeed, positively predicted the belief, but only when the degree of identity subversion was high. Identity subversion moderated the roles of dejection-agitation in mediating the effect of symbolic and realistic threats in predicting belief in conspiracy theories. More specifically, the empirical evidence of these mediating roles of dejection-agitation was only among Muslim participants with high identity subversion. Finally, theoretical implications and study limitations of the current findings were discussed.