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Published on: December 24, 2015
Biased hate crime perceptions can reveal supremacist sympathies
N Pontus Leander1, Jannis Kreienkamp2, Maximilian Agostini2
1Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, University of Groningen, 9712 TS Groningen, The Netherlands; n.p.leander@rug.nl.
Summary
People
Area of Science:
- Social Psychology
- Political Psychology
- Extremism Studies
Background:
- Support for violent extremism can be influenced by self-interest.
- Biased recognition of hate crimes may reflect underlying sympathies for extremism.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether factors predicting endorsement of violent extremism also predict biased hate crime perceptions.
- To analyze motivated judgment in hate crime perception across diverse mass shooting events.
Main Methods:
- Cross-sectional psychological surveys conducted after mass shootings in the US, New Zealand, and the Netherlands (total n = 2,332).
- Path analyses were used to examine the relationships between prejudicial attitudes, disempowerment, nationalism, and hate crime perceptions.
Main Results:
- Hate crime perceptions were consistently biased by prejudicial attitudes and a sense of disempowerment.
- Nationalism (White/Christian and ethnonationalist) also influenced perceptions.
- Specific examples include disempowerment-fueled anti-Semitism and Islamoprejudice affecting hate crime perceptions following distinct mass shootings.
Conclusions:
- Biased hate crime perceptions are often purposive, serving individual interests and revealing supremacist sympathies.
- Motivated reasoning plays a significant role in how individuals interpret events related to extremism and hate crimes.
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