Acculturation orientations and religious identity as predictors of Anglo-Australians’ attitudes towards Australian Muslims Hisham Motkal Abu-Rayya *, Fiona Ann White School of Psychology, Sydney University, NSW 2006, Australia 1. Introduction 1.1. Growing interethnic tensions between Muslim and Anglo-Australians Culture, ethnicity and religion play a critical role in shaping one’s conceptions of the self, the relationships between the self and others, and ultimately the importance and rigidity with which groups are perceived as ‘us’ (the ingroup) and ‘them’ (the outgroup) (Dovidio & Esses, 2001). The problem of prejudice arises when there is a categorization of the outgroup as a negative homogenous group, where all members are perceived as alike, with no individuality or diversity. Allport defined prejudice as ‘‘An antipathy based upon a faulty and inflexible generalization. It may be felt or expressed. It may be directed toward a group as a whole, or toward an individual because he [sic] is a member of that group’’ (1954, p. 9). The focal targets of prejudice in Australia have changed. Whilst Indigenous and Asian Australians still remain targets of prejudice (McGrane & White, 2007; White & Gleitzman, 2006), negative attention has now shifted to Australian Muslims. In the post-September 11 era and after the Bali bombings in 2002, anti-Muslim sentiments, sometimes referred to as Islamaphobia, increased in Australia. Forms of such sentiments include vandalism, threats against Mosques, schools, and centres, assaults of hijab-wearing women, telephone and mail threats to community leaders, and verbal abuse of Muslims International Journal of Intercultural Relations 34 (2010) 592–599 ARTICLE INFO Article history: Received 26 September 2009 Accepted 13 January 2010 Keywords: Anglo-Australians Australian Muslims Acculturation orientations Religious identity Outgroup attitudes ABSTRACT Poll studies have shown an increase in Anglo-Australians’ negative attitudes towards Australian Muslims. Such studies, however, by their nature present Anglo-Australians as a relatively unified group, making a limited scientific contribution to the understanding of intergroup relations. The present study aimed at revealing differences within Anglo- Australians by examining the extent to which their acculturation orientations and religious identity play a role in differentiating the levels of positive and negative attitudes they hold towards Australian Muslims. A total of 170 second year University students (116 females and 54 males) with a mean age of 22.09 (SD = 5.98) participated in the study. Generally, findings revealed that while Integrationist and Individualist were the most endorsed acculturation orientations, Assimilationist and Segregationist emerged the least, and participants recorded more positive attitudes towards Muslims than negative attitudes. Additionally, Integrationist and Individualist orientations were positively related to positive attitudes and negatively related to negative attitudes; the reverse was the case for Assimilationist and Segregationist orientations. Religious identity of Anglo- Australians predicted positive attitudes towards Australian Muslims but did not predict negative attitudes. ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 290367850. E-mail address: hisham.aburayya@sydney.edu.au (H.M. Abu-Rayya). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Intercultural Relations journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijintrel 0147-1767/$ – see front matter ß 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijintrel.2010.02.006