Interreligious Contact and Out-group Attitudes: Testing Contact Hypothesis among Religious Communities in South East Asia

• In Event: 496 - Regular Session. Peace and Conflict: Building Social Solidarity through Collective Action

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between interreligious contact and negative attitudes towards the religious out-group. It contributes to the existing research on the contact hypothesis by (1) focusing on a particularly relevant but understudied context, i.e., ethnically and religiously diverse regions of Indonesia and the Philippines, (2) moving beyond positive contact to consider extremely negative encounters, namely, interreligious violence, (3) providing further evidence for a causal relationship between interreligious friendships and negative attitudes towards the religious out-group. The analysis is based on unique survey data collected by the authors among Christian and Muslim students in Maluku and Yogyakarta (Indonesia) and Mindanao and Metro Manila (the Philippines). Even after taking self-selection effects into account, interreligious friendships reduce negative attitudes towards the religious out-group, and this occurs in particular among religious majorities. Casual interreligious contact such as neighborhood contact or contact-at-university increases negative out-group attitudes, however. Also individuals who experienced interreligious violence have more negative out-group attitudes than those without such experience and this is mainly among religious minorities. Perceived group threat is an important mechanism explaining the effects of both positive and negative interreligious contact. Finally, experience of interreligious violence has no influence on the effect of interreligious friendships but there is some evidence that it further deteriorates the positive relationship between casual interreligious contact and negative out-group attitudes.

Authors

• Agnieszka Kanas, Radboud University

• Peer Scheepers, Radboud University

• Carl Strekens, Radboud University