The face of terrorism: Stereotypical Muslim facial attributes evoke implicit perception of threat

Nur Abstract

Al-Qaida’s founder Osama bin Laden wore highly iconic paraphernalia (Carbon, 2008 Perception 37(5)
801–806), namely a turban and a characteristic beard. As the media consistently presented him in
this distinctive style, his outward appearance formed a visual stereotype of Islamist terrorists that, in
most cases, did not match the appearance of Islamist assassins. Using the multidimensional Implicit
Association Test (md-IAT, Gattol et al, 2011 Plos One 6(1) e15849) we tested the effect of adding
accordant stereotypical paraphernalia to male Caucasian faces (‘Muslim-version’): Compared to the
original, non-manipulated versions, the ‘Muslim-versions’ were evaluated as being more irrational,
unintelligent, unreliable and, particularly, as being more dangerous. Importantly, non-psychologists’
and psychologists’ data did not show any significant difference concerning these implicit measures but
did so for explicit measures assessed by a further test. This dissociate data pattern demonstrates that
iconic presentations elicit stereotypical associations independently of explicit reports. We argue that
visual attributes like a particular kind of beard and a turban are associated with conformity to Islam,
which is again associated with terrorist threat. More generally, the results suggest that the mere presence
of visual attributes can induce implicit black-and-white categorization and undifferentiated prejudice
toward people of other cultures.