title: Beyond anti-Muslim sentiment: opposing the Ground Zero mosque as a means to pursuing a stronger America.
abstract: Americans' opposition toward building an Islamic community center at Ground Zero has been attributed solely to a general anti-Muslim sentiment. We hypothesized that some Americans' negative reaction was also due to their motivation to symbolically pursue a positive U.S. group identity, which had suffered from a concurrent economic and political downturn. Indeed, when participants perceived that the United States was suffering from lowered international status, those who identified strongly with the country, as evidenced especially by a high respect or deference for group symbols, reported a stronger opposition to the "Ground Zero mosque" than participants who identified weakly with the country did. Furthermore, participants who identified strongly with the country also showed a greater preference for buildings that were symbolically congruent than for buildings that were symbolically incongruent with the significance of Ground Zero, and they represented Ground Zero with a larger symbolic size. These findings suggest that identifying group members' underlying motivations provides unusual insights for understanding intergroup conflict.
authors: Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 1101 E 10th St., Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. ljia@indiana.edu
authors: Lile
authors: L
authors: Jia
authors: Samuel C
authors: SC
authors: Karpen
authors: Edward R
authors: ER
authors: Hirt
mesh_terms: D000569:Americas; D001290:Attitude; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007514:Islam / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009519:New York City; D011287:Prejudice; D047851:September 11 Terrorist Attacks / Q000523:psychology*; D012922:Social Change; D012933:Social Identification; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D013561:Symbolism