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. 2022 Jun 13;30(4):501–513. doi: 10.1080/13218719.2022.2059027

The effect on judgment of attributing religious affiliation to a terrorist suspect

Chloé Dougez 1,✉, Anne Taillandier-Schmitt 1, Nicolas Combalbert 1
PMCID: PMC10361005  PMID: 37484507

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects and correlations of the perceived religious affiliation on a fictitious terrorism case. Participants were 402 French adults who completed a questionnaire after reading a scenario involving the arrest of a person (French vs. North African; man vs. woman) wearing an explosive belt. They indicated the level of the perpetrator’s religious affiliation and judged her/him and the act. The participants’ level of social dominance orientation (SDO) was measured and studied along in its two dimensions. The results showed an effect of ethnicity on perceived religious affiliation, which was correlated with judgment and mediated the effect of social dominance on judgment. The implications of this study are discussed in terms of intergroup interactions and religious prejudice.

Key words: ethnic origin, judgments, judicial context, religious affiliation, social dominance, stereotypes, terrorism

Introduction

The French Penal Code defines a terrorist act as an individual or collective undertaking aimed at seriously disturbing public order by intimidation or terror. It is a societal issue that may influence political discourse and public opinion. Since the 2000s, EU countries have thus developed plans to combat radicalization that conflate security and social issues, leading to introduce security policies in the social policies (Richards, 2011). These policies suggest the existential threat implied by the risk of radicalization, which then becomes conflated with the problem of integrating immigrants, with Islam being seen as the main enemy in the fight against terrorism (Mythen & Walklate, 2006; Rigouste, 2007; Sèze, 2021).

In France, the Charlie Hebdo attack generated a massive grassroots movement championing republican and especially secular values (Mayer & Tiberj, 2016; Zerhouni et al., 2016). The perpetrator of a terrorist act is often depicted as a man with an immigrant background (Mégie & Pawella, 2017), reflecting the prejudice against North African immigrant men, who are perceived as lacking respect for women, being violent, and likely to be radicalized (Delphy, 2008). Since the 1970s, French society has developed a feeling of insecurity in relation to people from North Africa, who are particularly devalued (Froehlich & Schulte, 2019). Furthermore, a German study found that social perceptions vary depending on migratory status and religious affiliation, and that refugees of North African origin and Muslims were the most socially devalued groups (Kotzur et al., 2019). In the media, Arabs are conflated with Muslims and are associated with barbarism, evil, and lack of freedom (Bhatia, 2008). Some authors have shown that media coverage depersonalizes Muslim terrorists, increasing the gap between societies with different religious cultures (see Powell, 2011).

Islam today is caught in a web of violence, and religious fundamentalism is perceived as the ultimate threat for the Western world (Rigouste, 2007). Terrorists have usually been considered as fanatics who belong to minorities using violence to oppose the rules established by the dominant power. Islamic terrorists are considered as an evil threat because of ambiguous links between religious affiliation and threat to democracies (Froehlich & Schulte, 2019). It also fuels prejudice towards Muslims and other minorities (Scharrer & Ramasubramanian, 2015), particularly when belonging to these groups is perceived to underlie criminal attitudes (Chen et al., 2015). In a judicial context, offenders seen as having a religious affiliation tend to be assigned harsher punishment (Noor et al., 2019). In France, the public visibility of Islam is a subject of current political debate (Sèze, 2021). The majority of French people say that they do not believe in God (Institut Français d’Opinion Publique, IFOP, 2021), and although French culture has strong Judeo-Christian roots, people of French origin are less likely to be affiliated to a religion than those of North African origin. The interactions between these groups can thus be seen not only in the light of differences in religious affiliation but also in relation to dominant versus subordinate groups.

To understand social oppression and prejudices against subordinate groups, Pratto et al. (1994) developed social dominance theory (SDT). They postulated that intergroup conflicts are facilitated by an ideology of social hierarchy, whereby dominant groups are seen as superior to subordinate groups. They developed the Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) Scale to measure an individual’s preference for a social hierarchy. SDO has been shown to be rife in the criminal justice system, which tends to allocate negative values to members of subordinate groups (Sidanius et al., 1994). Some studies have shown that level of SDO predicts prejudice (Saunders et al., 2016), including sexism and racial discrimination (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Authors have observed a link between a high level of SDO and support for harsh criminal and immigration policies (Craig & Richeson, 2014; Green et al., 2009; Perkins & Bourgeois, 2006), and for severe criminal sanctions (Sidanius, Mitchell, et al., 2006).

Some authors have shown that SDO has two dimensions: SDO–Dominance (SDO–D), involving active and aggressive oppression of subordinate groups, and SDO–Egalitarianism (SDO–E) involving opposition to equality (Ho et al., 2015, 2012; Kugler et al., 2010). SDO–D would thus predict support for aggressive or harsh policies towards subordinate groups, whereas SDO–E would predict prejudice and opposition to egalitarian policies (see Ho et al., 2015).

By attacking symbols of Western culture, terrorist acts are seen as an affront to Republican values (Powell, 2011). The violence and number of victims of terrorist attacks carried out by religious organizations jeopardize the relations between minority groups (especially Muslims) and the majority group. Media coverage in France focusing on the concept of ‘laïcité’ and anti-terrorism policies thus present Muslim culture as incompatible with French society (Mignard, 2018; Sèze, 2021).

The purpose of this study is to examine how members of the general public judge a person suspected of a terrorist act. More specifically, we investigated the effect of the suspect’s ethnic origin on the participants’ judgments, and the implicit association between ethnic origin and perceived religious affiliation in a terrorist case. To provide greater insight into the correlation between perceived religious affiliation and the judgments made by the participants, we measured their level of SDO before presenting the scenario, in which the profile of a terrorist suspect varied according to gender (man vs. woman) and ethnicity (French vs. North African). They were then asked to give their opinion about how the suspect should be judged and to indicate the extent to which they thought he or she was likely to be a religious fundamentalist.

We hypothesized first that North African defendants would be seen as more religiously fundamentalist than the French defendants (H1), given the conflation of North African and Muslim (Liogier, 2012; Ragazzi et al., 2018). Secondly, we expected positive correlations between the attribution of a religious identity and judgment (guilt, likelihood to carrying the act, risk of recidivism, perceived a threat, severity of sentence; H2). We hypothesized that the two dimensions of SDO (SDO–D and SDO–E) would lead to differences in judgments. Given the violent nature of terrorist acts, we expected that SDO–D would lead to harsher judgments than SDO–E (H3) due to the active nature of the SDO–D dimension. Religious affiliation appears to be one of the most threatening factors of terrorism, and a Dutch study showed that hostility towards Muslims is related to a form of support for dominance policies (increasingly harsh measures against immigrants; Sniderman & Hagendoorn, 2009, cited in Unnever, 2019). Thus, the perception of a terrorist suspect as a religious fundamentalist would mediate the effect of SDO–D on judgment measures (H4).

Method

Participants

The sample comprised 402 French adults (157 men and 245 women) with a mean age of 30.26 years (range = 18–80). They included students in different disciplines (n = 220), people in employment (n = 133), and retired or unemployed people (n = 49). The large majority of participants were from a French provincial town in the department of Indre-et-Loire. They completed an online questionnaire with a link distributed via social media and by email. They were informed that the study involved ‘judgments and intentions’, and all provided their consent for publication of the results. They received no remuneration for their participation. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions.

Materials

Scenario

Participants completed the questionnaire after reading a scenario describing the arrest of a person wearing an explosive belt at the entrance to a shopping mall in Paris. The profile of the offender varied according to (a) gender (male vs. female), and (b) ethnicity (French vs. North African). This was achieved by modifying the name: Mr. or Mrs. T. Roche, Mr. or Mrs. A. Abdelkadi (names used in a previous study by Dambrun & Vanité, 2009). The person was described as 29 years old and employed in a post office, currently on remand and awaiting trial. The scenario appeared on each page of the questionnaire so that participants could refer to it easily.

Stereotype content model

After reading the scenario, participants responded to items related to the SCM and BIAS map (Brambilla et al., 2011; Carrier et al., 2014; Leach et al., 2007). Because these measures did not meet the purpose of the present paper, they are not examined in this study; the data may be the subject of another study.

Judgment measures

Items measuring participants’ judgment have been used in several studies (Dougez et al., 2018; Taillandier-Schmitt & Combalbert, 2017). The participants judged the act and the defendant on a 5-point Likert-type rating scale (1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree). Two items concerned the defendant’s guilt and responsibility for the act (r = .64, p < .01) (‘Indicate the extent to which the person arrested is guilty of the act charged’; ‘Indicate the degree of responsibility for the acts of which he/she is accused’). Other items concerned the likelihood of the act being carried out (‘He/she was going to act and commit an attack’), the risk of recidivism (‘The person arrested has a high risk of reoffending’), and the degree of threat to the security of the country (‘The person arrested poses a threat to the safety of people in France’) and to society (‘The person arrested poses a threat to the values of French society’). Participants also indicated how aggressive and violent they perceived the perpetrator to be (aggressive, violent, and dangerous, Cronbach’s α = .77), and how harsh the sentence should be (‘How severe do you think the sentence should be?’). Finally, they indicated whether the defendant was likely to belong to a fundamentalist religious organization (‘The perpetrator is a religious fundamentalist’).

Social dominance orientation

Prior to presentation of the scenarios and questionnaire, participants responded to the 10 items of the SDO scale, inspired by Sidanius and Pratto (1999) and translated into French and adapted by Duarte et al. (2004). They rated items on a 7-point Likert-type scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). Five items (e.g. ‘People from the lower classes should stay in their place’) measured the preference for social dominance (Cronbach’s alpha = .79), a high score indicating support for a hierarchy of intergroup relationships, with the in-group dominating outgroup (SDO–D). The other five items (e.g. ‘There would be fewer problems if people were treated more equally’) measured anti-social dominance orientation (Cronbach’s α = .86). The scores were inverted to obtain the SDO–E measure, whereby higher scores indicated preference for inequality between groups.

Design

Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS software, Version 28. We conducted correlational analyses, as well as comparisons to study the effect of ethnicity on the judgment measures and in particular the religious affiliation measure. We conducted mediation analyses to examine the mediating effect of the attribution of religious affiliation on the effect of the level of SDO–D on judgment. Analyses were conducted using Hayes (2013, 2018) PROCESS macro model 4, with 5000 bootstraps. The ‘Gender’ and ‘Ethnicity’ variables of the suspects were examined separately in order to meet the objectives of the study.

Results

Control variables

As shown in Table 1, the participants’ gender correlates with SDO–D and SDO–E. Comparisons show that men scored higher on SDO–D (M = 2.94, SD = 1.22) than women (M = 2.65, SD = 1.06), t(400) = 2.54, p < .05. Likewise, men scored higher on SDO–E (M = 2.64, SD = 1.22) than women (M = 2.11, SD = 0.98), t(400) = 4.76, p < .001. This is consistent with previous studies showing that men tend to have a higher level of SDO than women (Caricati, 2007; Sidanius, Sinclair, et al., 2006).

Table 1.

Table of correlations of controlled and dependent variables.

  Gender Age Employment status
Carrying out the act .049 .180** .092
Religious fondamentalist .014 .174** .125*
Risk of recidivism .071 .015 −.039
Threat to society .005 .169** .122*
Threat to security −.012 −.012 −.074
Severity of the sentence .013 .078 .030
Aggressiveness .080 .110* .073
Guilt −.055 −.010 −.050
SDO–D −.126* −.041 −.179*
SDO–E −.231** −.067 −.082
Gender .095 — .148
Age — .095 .724
Employment status −.020 −.023 —
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Note: SDO–D = Social Dominance Orientation–Dominant; SDO–E = Social Dominance Orientation–Egalitarian.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

Unexpectedly, we observe positive correlations between participants’ age and several independent variables (Table 1), namely carrying out the act, perceived religious affiliation, perceived threat to society, and aggressiveness. Thus, the older the participants were, the more threatening the suspect was considered. We therefore controlled for ‘age’ in all the analyses.

Furthermore, we also observed correlations between employment status and the measures of religious affiliation, threat to society, and the SDO–D. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) analyses revealed no significant effect of this variable on the attribution of religious affiliation, F(2, 401) = 0.79, p = .45, and the perception of threat to society, F(2, 401) = 0.54, p = .58. By contrast, it did have a significant effect on the of SDO–D, F(2, 401) = 7.39, p < .001, ηp2 = .04, post hoc tests indicating that students scored higher (M = 2.95, SD = 1.15) than people in employment (M = 2.55, SD = 1.07) and retired or unemployed people (M = 2.47, SD = 1.08; Fisher’s least significant difference, LSD, p < .05).

Correlations and effects of variables

As predicted (H1), participants gave higher ‘religious fundamentalist’ scores for the North African (M = 3.08, SD = 0.89) than the French offenders (M = 2.79, SD = 0.83), F(1, 401) = 10.90, p < .01, η2p = .03. Likewise, the suspect’s ethnic origin influenced the risk of acting out, F(1, 401) = 5.31, p < .05, η2p = .01. However, there was no effect of ethnicity on the other judgment measures.

Table 2 shows that the suspect’s gender is correlated to the perception of his/her aggressiveness and the attribution of guilt. ANOVAs revealed that male suspects were perceived as more aggressive (M = 3.62, SD = 0.76) than the women (M = 3.46, SD = 0.83), F(1, 401) = 4.24, p < .05, η2p = .01, and as more guilty (M = 4.04, SD = 0.69) than the female suspects (M = 3.84, SD = 0.80), F(1, 401) = 7.24, p < .01, η2p = .02.

Table 2.

Correlations between the dependent and independent variables.

  Gender Ethnic origin Acting Religious affiliation Risk of recidivism Threat to society Threat to security Severity sentence Aggressiveness Culpability SDO–D SDO–E
Gender —                      
Ethnic origin −.154** —                    
Acting −.008 .114* —                  
Religious affiliation .002 .163** .299** —                
Risk of recidivism −.039 .109* .378** .435** —              
Threat to society .031 .005 .459** .316** .417** —            
Threat to security −.067 .008 .413** .237** .466** .536** —          
Severity sentence −.065 .056 .473** .262** .442** .488** .506** —        
Aggressiveness −.102* .062 .431** .294** .441** .454** .488** .440** —      
Culpability −.133** .033 .435** .210** .355** .389** .431** .571** .400 —    
SDO–D −.088 .061 .155** .172** .192** .232** .162** .248** .123* .182* —  
SDO–E −.037 .041 .078 .086 .127* .105* .071 .215** −.024 .131** .553** —
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Note: SDO–D = Social Dominance Orientation–Dominant; SDO–E = Social Dominance Orientation–Egalitarian.

*p < .05. **p < .01.

The results show that there is a relationship between the attribution of religious affiliation and judgment. As it shows in Table 2, perceived religious affiliation is positively correlated with perceived risk of recidivism, threat to society and security of the country, the severity of the sentence, and the perceived aggressiveness and guilt of the suspect.

SDO measures

‘Religious fundamentalist’ was positively correlated with SDO–D (r = .17, p < .01), but not with SDO–E (Table 2). Table 3 shows the results of the regression analyses conducted for the two SDO dimensions, notably that participants with higher scores on SDO–D gave higher scores on the measures of guilt, risk of committing the act and recidivism, were more likely to view the suspect as aggressive and a threat to the security of the country and to society, and recommended a harsher sentence. SDO–E had less effect on judgment, but was related to perceived guilt, risk of recidivism, threat to society, and severity of the sentence (Table 3).

Table 3.

Summary of linear regressions of the effects of SDO–D and SDO–E dimensions on judgment variables.

  SDO–D
 SDO–E
ß t ß t
Guilt .18*** 3.69 .13* 2.65
Carrying out the act .16* 3.15 .08NS 1.56
Recidivism .19*** 3.91 .13* 2.56
Aggressiveness .12* 2.48 −.02NS −0.47
Threat to security .16*** 3.28 .07NS 1.42
Threat to society .23*** 4.76 .11* 2.11
Severity of the sentence .24*** 5.13 .22*** 4.40
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Note: SDO–D = Social Dominance Orientation–Dominant; SDO–E = Social Dominance Orientation–Egalitarian. NS = not significant.

*p < .05. ***p ⩽ .001.

Mediating effect of perceived religious affiliation on the effect of participants’ SDO–D on judgment

We tested the mediating effect of perceived religious affiliation in the relationship between participants’ level of SDO–D and judgment measures. We checked that the positive correlations between the control variables (gender, age, and employment status) did not interfere in the mediation analyses. Thus, we present only the results of analyses showing that perceived religious affiliation significantly mediated the effect of level of SDO–D on judgment.

The effect of participants’ level of SDO–D on the mediator ‘Religious affiliation’ was significant and positive (a = 0.13, t = 3.49, p < .001).

Perceived guilt

When controlling for the effect of level of SDO–D, the mediating effect of religious affiliation on the dependent variable ‘Guilt’ was significant and positive (b = 0.17, t = 3.82, p < .005). Additionally, when controlling for the mediating effect of ‘Religious fundamentalism’, the direct effect of level of SDO–D on the dependent variable is significant and positive (c = 0.10, t = 2.99, p < .005). Finally, the indirect effect of level of SDO–D on the dependence variable through the attribution of religious affiliation was significant and positive (a × b = 0.22), with a 95% confidence interval excluding 0 (95% confidence interval, CI [.01, .04]).

Perceived threat to the country’s security

When controlling for the effect of level of SDO–D, the mediating effect of religious affiliation on the dependent variable ‘Threat to country’s security’ was significant and positive (b = 0.20, t = 4.40, p < .001). Finally, the indirect effect of level of SDO–D on the dependent variable through the attribution of religious affiliation is significant and positive (a × b = 0.03), with a 95% confidence interval excluding 0 (95% CI [.01, .05]).

When controlling for the effect of level of SDO–D, the mediating effect of religious affiliation on the dependent variable ‘Severity of the sentence’ was significant and positive (b = .22, t = 4.79, p < .001). Finally, the indirect effect of level of SDO–D on the dependent variable through the attribution of religious affiliation is significant and positive (a × b = 0.03), with a 95% confidence interval excluding 0 (95% CI [.01, .05]).

Discussion

The aim of this study was to examine the correlations between the attribution of religious affiliation to the perpetrator of a terrorist act and judgment, and the mediation effect of this variable on the effect of the participant’s level of SDO–D on judgment. The most interesting result concerns the effect of ethnicity on the attribution of religious affiliation (H1). Although the scenario made no mention of any affiliation of the perpetrator to a terrorist organization, religious or otherwise, the presentation of terrorist suspect with a North African name led the participants to attribute religious affiliation. This is consistent with our first hypothesis and that there is a conflation between people of North African origin and religious affiliation, particularly Islam.

The results show that the perceived religious affiliation of the terrorist suspect is positively correlated with judgment measures (H2), notably harsher judgments (in terms of guilt, risk of recidivism, perceived threat to society and the country’s security, severity of the sentence, and perceived aggressiveness). This result is particularly relevant given that ethnicity and gender had no effect (expect for the perception of guilt and aggressiveness) on judgment. We can thus hypothesize that religious affiliation, and the conflation of Islamic religious affiliation with North African origin, has a greater impact on judgment than the offender’s ethnic origin. The effects of the gender of the perpetrator on measures of guilt and perceived aggressiveness can probably be explained by gender stereotypes; while the representations of men and women are changing, the stereotypes of aggressive men and gentle, harmless women are still widespread (Le Bohec & Lebon, 2021).

Some studies have shown that death-related thoughts generated by terrorist attacks increase prejudiced attitudes (Das et al., 2009; Kastenmüller et al., 2011). Thus, participants implicitly linked the terrorist suspect with a religious organization, particularly when the perpetrator was a North African immigrant, which supports the hypothesis of a conflation between Arabs and Islam, which is often perceived as violent (Bhatia, 2008; Garcia & Dubé, 2017; Mégie & Pawella, 2017). Furthermore, our results confirm the existence of a judgment bias, as the attribution of religious affiliation was associated with harsher punitive attitudes (Noor et al., 2019). Moreover, we cannot exclude the possibility that the current political debates and media presentations of Islam accentuated the effects of this variable. In future studies, it would be particularly interesting to introduce religious affiliation as an independent variable in order to measure the relative weight of the influence of ethnic origin and religion in a terrorist act.

Our third hypothesis was confirmed by the effect of SDO–D on the judgment measures. While the level of SDO–E positively predicted scores on measures of perpetrator’s guilt, risk of recidivism, perceived threat to society, and the severity of the sentence, the level of SDO–D positively and more significantly predicted all measures of judgment. This suggests that the participants’ perceptions of the act and the suspect were influenced more by active support of a social hierarchy than by subtle opposition to egalitarian policies, as SDO–D is related to aggressive support for a system in which one group dominates subordinate groups (Ho et al., 2015). In terrorism cases, this can be seen as an attempt to control an overly threatening minority.

SDO–D is also related to beliefs that reinforce hierarchy over assimilation (Hindriks et al., 2014), the latter being incompatible with religious affiliation, particularly if it differs from Judeo-Christian values. This is in line with our results showing that the perception of a religious affiliation affects the influence of the participants’ level of SDO–D on their judgements (measure of guilt, threat to the country’s security, and severity of the sentence; H4). Powell (2011) showed how media coverage of terrorism demonizes Muslim terrorists, seen as working together to destroy an idealized Western culture. The author postulated that national terrorists are more likely than international terrorists to be seen as belonging to the majority group. The indirect link between the level of SDO–D and some aspects of judgments, through the perception of a religious affiliation, can be explained by the use of stereotypes. Indeed, a high level of SDO is a strong predictor of prejudice (see Son Hing & Zanna, 2010). The idea that the religious fundamentalist is dangerous and poses a threat would thus increase the perception of a threat to the country, the guilt of the suspect, and the severity of the sentence. The active nature of SDO–D could involve fighting the external threat posed by an unknown religion, ‘the Enemy of Europe’ (Mythen & Walklate, 2006; Rigouste, 2007; Sèze, 2021). The mediation effects are particularly interesting, by showing that the effect of individual differences (e.g. support for social hierarchy) can be mediated by a common conception linked to a social representation. It suggests that perceived religious affiliation may partly explain why the level of SDO–D positively predicts punitive attitudes and prejudice. In a society in which issues of the concept of ‘laïcité’ is often raised in political debates, it would be interesting to examine the impact of received views on the effect of ideological orientations. Consistent with the fact that individual differences (e.g. religious attitude, level of SDO, and intergroup interactions) and situational variables (e.g. mortality salience) predict religious prejudice (Hewstone et al., 2011), our study confirms the complexity of intergroup attitudes and perceptions and the need for further investigations into religious bias, ideological orientations, and societal issues. For instance, a recent study (Lockhart et al., 2020) demonstrated that religious and spiritual identification can interact with conservatism via SDO and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA; Altemeyer, 1998), and thus that political issues may be associated with religious affiliation and political and social views.

Limitations and future directions

Our results show that there are positive correlations between participants’ age on the perceived religious affiliation, threat to society, and aggressiveness of a terrorist suspect. This could be explained by changes in religious practices in France (IFOP, 2021) and prejudices (Commission Nationale Consultative des Droits de l’Homme, CNCDH, 2021), and while age was controlled for in the analyses, this factor merits further consideration. The present study is based on the effect produced by presentation of a short scenario, and it would be interesting to conduct a further study manipulating the participants’ demographics, including age, gender, social status, religious affiliation, ethnic origin, and socio-professional categories, in order to gain greater insight into how perceptions and judgments are created with regard to terrorist acts and perpetrators. It would also be interesting to replicate the methodology with more specific information about both the perpetrator and potential victims, based on the way terrorist acts and their offender(s) are presented in the media.

In this study, we studied the correlational effects of perceived religious affiliation, which was a dependent variable. Findings revealed that participants attributed more religious affiliation to suspects of North African background, even though no specific information was provided in the scenario, and that this measure was correlated with harsher judgements, but it would be interesting to include this factor as an independent variable.

Finally, this study analyzed SDO through two dimensions. However, the RWA scale (Altemeyer, 1998) can be used to predict prejudicial attitudes against minorities and subordinate groups. Duckitt and Sibley (2007) showed that SDO and RWA combined can predict a significant part of the variance in prejudicial attitudes. Furthermore, the component of authoritarian aggression is strongly related to punitive attitudes and behaviors against individuals who violate intergroup values (Duckitt, 2001). It would therefore be interesting to include the RWA in future studies.

Conclusion

The findings of the present study pose a challenge for the prosecution of terrorist cases: what role does religion play in judicial decision-making when a terrorist act is committed in the name of a religious institution? Furthermore, to what extent does the violence of an act and its relation to societal values activate factors, such as SDO, that can influence decision-making? The present study has three important contributions: (a) the implicit association between ethnicity and perceived religious affiliation in a terrorism case, (b) religious affiliation could be a more significant factor than suspect’s demographics (gender or ethnicity), and (c) perceived religious affiliation can mediate the influence of the judge’s profile (e.g. social orientation). The findings could have major implications in many areas, by raising awareness of the biases in decision-making, as well as their influence on social, judicial, and immigration policies.

Ethical standards

Declaration of conflicts of interest

Chloé Dougez has declared no conflicts of interest

Anne Taillandier-Schmitt declared no conflicts of interest

Nicolas Combalbert declared no conflicts of interest

Ethical approval

All the procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Ethics and Research Committee Tours-Poitiers, France (file n°2020-02-04).

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study

Acknowledgments

We thank all the participants who agreed to take part in the study.

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