Self-affirmation, prejudice against muslim immigrants and French secularism: A dual motivation perspective

Abstract

In France, “new secularism” laws established restrictive norms, such as prohibiting religious practices in public institutions. This approach contrasts with “historical secularism”, a more inclusive framework that upholds freedom of religious expression. We conducted a pilot study (N = 678) and a main experiment (N = 776) to examine how the norms of new vs. historical secularism interact with self-affirmation in influencing prejudice and perceived threat toward Muslim immigrants. In the pilot study, participants exposed to new secularism norms exhibited higher prejudice after completing a self-affirmation task. In the preregistered main experiment, we additionally measured participants’ concerns about appearing prejudiced against Muslims and their motivations to avoid bias (internal vs. external). Results showed that higher external motivation was associated with greater concerns about appearing prejudiced and higher levels of perceived threat toward Muslims, the latter particularly in the new secularism condition. In contrast, higher internal motivation was linked to lower levels of perceived threat and prejudice, irrespective of the normative context. The self-affirmation procedure reduced concerns about appearing prejudiced among participants with external motivation and lowered prejudice among participants with higher internal motivation to avoid intergroup bias. The discussion emphasizes the potential for new secularism norms to have disparate effects on attitudes towards religious groups. In ambiguous contexts of religious neutrality, self-affirmation can mitigate intergroup bias among individuals motivated by internal factors.