The face of terrorism: Stereotypical Muslim facial attributes evoke implicit perception of threat
Faculty/Professorship: | General Psychology and Methodology |
Author(s): | Harsányi, Géza ; Raab, Marius ![]() ![]() |
Title of the Journal: | Perception |
ISSN: | 0301-0066 |
Corporate Body: | 35th European Conference on Visual Perception (ECVP), 2012, Alghero. |
Publisher Information: | London : Pion |
Year of publication: | 2012 |
Volume: | 41 |
Issue: | 41 ( 2012), supplement |
Pages: | 111 |
Language(s): | English |
Remark: | Nur Abstract |
URL: | http://www.perceptionweb.com/ECVP.html http://www.perceptionweb.com/abstract.cgi?id=v1... |
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. |
Keywords: | face perception, islamophobia, iconic face representation, multi-dimensional Implicit Association Test (md-IAT) |
Type: | Conferenceobject |
URI: | https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/handle/uniba/1707 |
Year of publication: | 15. July 2013 |

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University of Bamberg