Threat, fundamentalism, and Islamophobia: Assessing the factors associated with negative attitudes toward Muslims.

Prejudice toward Muslims has been longstanding and has been on the rise in the U.S. To address Islamophobia, it is important to understand the associated underlying motivations. Intergroup Threat Theory (ITT) suggests that prejudice is motivated by the perceived symbolic and/or realistic threat a group represents. To date, the relationship between threat and Islamophobia has primarily been examined correlationally rather than experimentally. The current study aims to provide an initial experimental test of ITT to understand Islamophobia among U.S. Christians. Christian participants (N = 267) in the U.S. were randomly exposed to one of three news articles that elicited either realistic threat, symbolic threat, or no threat (control). Participants answered questions assessing Islamophobia and religious fundamentalism (RF). Results indicate that high levels of RF predict Islamophobia most strongly when realistic threat is salient. These results shed light onto the predisposing factors associated with Islamophobic attitudes and highlight the role of RF and perceived threat.