Out of control: How and why does perceived lack of control lead to ethnocentrism? DMITRIJ AGROSKIN and EVA JONAS

In the last election of the Austrian parliament in September 2008, two far-right parties together received nearly 30% of the votes. The New York Times commented on this: “Far-Right, Anti-Immigrant Parties Make Gains in Austrian Elections” (Kulish, 2008). What caused about one third of the Austrian electorate to vote for parties holding views that contain a form of ethnocentrism and xenophobia, which was thought to have left the Austrian political community forever about 60 years ago? Recent social psychological examination of the sociopolitically very important question of how ethnocentrism evolves, demonstrates that it often occurs after experiences of control deprivation, suggesting a compensatory function (e.g. Fritsche & Jonas, 2009; Fritsche, Jonas, & Fankhänel, 2008). Consider the following three facts: In 2004, 63% of Austrian participants in a survey stated that they felt threatened by terrorist organizations (Schaller, 2004), in the year of 2010, 54% indicated the same regarding Islam (IMAS-International, 2010). Moreover, 50% admitted to fear losing their job because of the current economic crisis in 2009 (Schmidt, 2009). What do these three occurrences have in common? They represent human reactions to important external threats like the threat to physical integrity or even life (terrorism), financial security (economic crisis) or the disintegration of one’s own cultural group – something numerous Austrians seem to be afraid of when thinking about Islam (or rather islamization). Whether such threats are really fatal or rather exaggerated, they owe their dangerousness mainly to the fact that potential victims cannot do much to defang them, that is to say, the individual suffers from lacking control when facing powerful threats, and must do something to end this highly aversive state (e.g. Kay, Whitson, Gaucher, & Galinsky, 2009; Pittman, 1998). The present enquiry aims at providing answers to the questions how and why low control perceptions frequently result in increased ethnocentrism by identifying psychological processes that mediate the effect of lacking control on ethnocentric attitudes. Theoretical background. This research is based on the theoretical work of Rothbaum, Weisz, and Snyder (1982), who posited two ways of reacting to perceptions of low control. One way, called primary control, is realized by directly manipulating the environment to achieve personal goals. The other way – secondary control – includes several means of restoring a sense of being in control: one can try to predict future events to protect against disappointment (predictive control), to align oneself with chance in connection with magical thinking that includes rituals for good luck (illusory control), to identify with powerful others (e.g. a cultural group, political authorities, etc.), which permits the Dmitrij Agroskin, University of Salzburg, Department of Psychology, Social Psychology, Hellbrunner Str. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria. E-mail: [email protected] (the address for correspondence). Out of control: How and why does perceived lack of control lead to ethnocentrism?