Prejudice in inter-religious context: The role of meta-prejudice and majority-minority status

Samples of two hundred forty-five majority Sunny Muslims, 87 Ahmadiyya Muslims and 145 Christians were used to investigate the determinants and mediators of prejudice in inter-religious context in Indonesia. First, the study extends the idea of ingroup and outgroup meta-prejudice; both of which were found to mediate the relationship between perceived quality of intergroup relationship and personal prejudice. Second, we expected that majority members are more likely to reject a minority, and that a minority is more likely to more strongly reject another minority than the majority for self-serving reasons. Additionally, the Sunni majority will prejudice and reject the Ahmadiyya minority more than the Christian minority due to the strained religious relation between the two Muslim groups. The hypotheses were confirmed. The findings are discussed in the context of stereotyping and prejudice dynamics in other intergroup conflicts and ways of coping with such conflict are suggested.