Cultural roots of negative outgroup attitudes

• Department of Political and Social Sciences

In the context of the Comparative Politics Seminar Series, this sessions features a presentation by Max Schaub (University of Hamburg).

Outgroup prejudice is frequently attributed to contemporaneous factors, such as economic competition and perceptions of threat. We investigate the underlying source of stereotypes. We propose that many negative outgroup attitudes are ultimately rooted in what we refer to as cultural scripts—interconnected networks of meanings that link particular group identities to negatively-connoted phenomena. Using original survey data during the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany (n=17,800), we document a rise in antisemitic attitudes among individuals directly exposed to the pandemic, but solely among Christian believers. We suggest that this is because Christians rely on a cultural script linking Judaism with the spread of diseases. Evidence for the existence of this script is obtained from an automated text analysis of an original corpus of antisemitic texts (n=172). By means of a concept association task and a survey experiment (n=2,000), we demonstrate the differential effect of the script in the minds of Christians and non-Christians. We rule out several alternative explanations, particularly right-wing ideology. Our work demonstrates the deep cultural roots of exclusionary political attitudes and the mechanisms behind their activation.

In order to receive the paper, please send an email to pia.dittmar@eui.eu