The role of Muslim identity in predicting violent behavioural intentions to defend Muslims

Author Affiliation

Gulnaz Anjum is Associate Professor at Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi

Faculty / School

Faculty of Business Administration (FBA)

Department

Department of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts

Was this content written or created while at IBA?

Yes

Document Type

Article

Source Publication

Group Processes and Intergroup Relations

ISSN

1368-4302

Disciplines

Arts and Humanities | Political Science | Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Sociology

Abstract

A sense of shared Muslim suffering seems to play a key role in uniting Muslims around the world. Therefore, in the current paper we hypothesized that the social psychological underpinnings of Islamist extremism would be similar for Muslims living in the West and Muslims living in countries with prolonged and ongoing exposure to Western-led military interventions. Across 4 studies among Muslims in Pakistan and Afghanistan (Ns = 425, 402, and 127) and Muslims living in 20 Western countries (N = 366), we examined a path model in which group-based anger mediated the link between Muslim identification, perceived injustice of Western military and foreign policy, and violent behaviour intentions. Our results indicate that regardless of whether Muslims live in places with prolonged and ongoing experience of Western military interventions or not, the social psychological factors predicting violent Islamist extremism appear to be similar. We discuss implications for future theory and research.

Indexing Information

HJRS - W Category, Scopus, Web of Science - Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)

Journal Quality Ranking

Impact Factor: 3.129

Publication Status

Published

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