Expediente N° 1124-2001-AA/TC Sindicato Unitario de Trabajadores de

The hypothesis combined in-group virtue and out-group into a counter-intuitive proposition: under conditions of high threat, greater professed in-group tolerance norm will lead to greater sanction of more stringent actions against the out-group. The key finding is that we do find the expected interactions on the predicted dependent variables, although the exact nature of the interaction is different on different measures.

The interaction on the Affect Scale was significant F(1,90)=7.67, p=.007. But a further analysis on the simple main effects, revealed that the shape of the interaction was not in the predicted direction. Virtue did not increase negative feelings towards Muslims in conditions of high threat, however, virtue did decrease negative feelings towards Muslims under conditions of no threat F(1,42)=6.83, p=.01 Though the research hypothesis for the affect scale was disconfirmed, the interesting part is that tolerance has a positive effect as a virtue where out-group threat is absent.

The interaction of virtue and threat on 6 Action-statements analysed together was significant at F=(1,90), p=.04 [The Repressive Action action-statement items were: ‘We need strong anti-terror laws to protect our country against Muslim terrorism.’; ‘Since Muslims take advantage of Indian tolerance, our aggression against Muslims is an act of self-defence’ and one positively worded (reverse coded) item statement ‘For national security, it is not reasonable for the Army and Police to use strong methods to interrogate Muslims suspected of terrorism’. Cultural suppression action-statement items were: ‘The Muslim call for prayers (Azaan) through loud-speakers should be prohibited’; ‘For Indian democracy, Islamic religious teachings by Mullahs should not be tolerated’; and

one positively worded (reverse-coded) item-statement, ‘Islamic educational institutions like Madrassahs should be allowed to function’.] This was further analysed to determine the shape of the interaction. Virtue had no effect in the condition where threat was absent, however, virtue worked in the predicted direction in the condition where threat is present

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at F(1,47)=4.57, p=.03 Therefore the research-hypothesis on the action-statements in a particular combination was confirmed.

The final hypothesis of Violence against Out-group measures did not work. A plausible explanation could be because of the way that the statements were framed. Apart from the complicated sentence structure, while all the other item-statements imply generic support for or against suggested actions, these three items invoked a sense of personal accountability (‘In general, I sympathise when some Indians use violence against Muslims, even though I do not condone violence itself.’; ‘I understand the reasons given by some Indians for the use of violence, even though I do not condone violence itself.’;

and ‘I support the reasons given by some Indians for the use of violence against Muslims even though I do not condone violence itself.) The manipulation check of threat did not work in the actual experiment. This is an issue that needs further research.

Understanding Threat: The influential intergroup theory by Stephan and colleagues states, “We now believe that in general low power groups are more likely than high power groups to experience threats but that high power groups to the extent that they actually perceive that they are threatened will react more strongly to threat” (p 70 Stephan, Ybarra, & Morrison, 2009). The literature on inter-group threat theory suggests that using symbolic threat would have led to a greater possibility of sanctioning violence against the outgroup rather than realistic threat (Pereira et al., 2009; González et al., 2008). Work done by Tausch and colleagues in India, within the framework of intergroup threat theory, show that while realistic threat might be a proximal predictor of prejudice, the findings are constrained by the particular group identities of majority and minority group identities. So for example, for Hindus (majority group) symbolic threat predicted prejudice while for Muslims (minority group) it was realistic threat (Tausch et al., 2009) This is an important finding for the context in which this experiment was conducted on Hindu students. The experiment also carries within it the ethical consideration of ensuring that in the process of participation in the experiment, hate discourse is not inadvertently endorsed. The manipulation of realistic threat instead of symbolic threat was one that was based on an ethical judgment. Since this is not something one can conduct without ensuring further follow up in terms of workshops or sustained engagement with the participants, the researchers decided that a debrief session of 2 hours would not suffice. In

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contrast, realistic threat dealing with ‘statistics’ can be countered as made-up data citing various other sources. Ethically, this was judged to be a more acceptable process within the available time than ending up doing more harm by adding to the discourse of hate with symbolic threat manipulations.

Therefore an intensive debriefing session was organised at the end of the experiment for participants of all conditions dismantling the ‘facts’ that had been put forward as manipulations, especially noting that social scientists in various papers (Phadke, 1993; Puniyani, 2005; Rohini, 1993; Thapar, 1989) argue that there is little or no truth to the claims of Muslim over-population made by the saffron ideologues.

The results though conservative in significance and effect, shed light on the impact of in- group virtue and out-group threat on emotion and action-statements. In cases of emotion, virtue can lead to decreased negativity for those not threatened, but not for those threatened. In the case of action-statements demanding measures to curb typically Islamic cultural practises, virtue leads to increased negativity for those who are threatened but not those who are not threatened. Interestingly, Stephan and colleagues also note, realistic threats would be expected to lead to more ‘pragmatic’ responses to the outgroup, as behaviour designed to cope with the threat (Stephan et al., 2009, p. 53).