Jonas R. Kunst is Professor of Communication at BI Norwegian Business School (Department of Communication and Culture) and Professor II of Cultural and Community Psychology at the University of Oslo. He completed his PhD in Social Psychology at the University of Oslo (2016). He has held postdoctoral fellowships at Yale University, in addition to being a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. In 2019, he became Associate Professor and in 2020 Full Professor of Psychology at the University of Oslo.
His work has garnered multiple honors, including the Rising Star Designation and the Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions from the Association for Psychological Science, an Early Career Award from the International Academy of Intercultural Research, and a Fellowship in the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and the Association of Psychological Science.
Professor Kunst’s research focuses on acculturation, misinformation (and how organizations can address it), prejudice, violent extremism, and environmental psychology, with a growing interest in the implications of artificial intelligence. He will be teaching courses on persuasion.
Jonas R. Kunst serves as Editor-in-Chief of advances.in/psychology. He is also a Consulting Editor for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and serves on the editorial boards of Personality and Social Psychology Review, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, and the International Journal of Intercultural Relations.
Conspiracy theories have the capacity to evoke intense emotions that can serve as catalysts for behavioral propensities, even those of the most extreme nature (Bierwiaczonek et al., 2024), underscoring the paramount importance of a psychological understanding of this intricate process. While a number of studies have investigated the role of emotions in this context (e.g., Prooijen, 2022; van Prooijen et al., 2022; Wabnegger et al., 2024), a comprehensive framework to elucidate how different conspiracy theories elicit distinct emotions based on their appraisal has been notably absent. This lacuna in the literature makes the contribution by Pummerer et al. (2024) all the more invaluable and timely. In their review, the authors put forward the Appraisal Model of Conspiracy Theories (AMCT) to understand the diverse emotional and behavioral consequences of conspiracy beliefs. The model posits that different features of conspiracy theories, when made salient, elicit specific combinations of appraisals related to certainty, control, and pleasantness. These appraisal patterns are thought to be associated with distinct emotions such as fear, anger, disgust, pride, and schadenfreude, which in turn are connected to different action tendencies ranging from withdrawal, confrontation, aggression aimed at exclusion, to community-building. The model can be considered a seminal contribution to the field and generates many testable hypotheses for future research.
Allegretta, Silvia; Gavrilova, Margarita, Kartushina, Natalia, Mayor, Julien, Roch, Maja & Kunst, Jonas R. (2025)
Parental Attitudes and Children’s Language Development: A Cross-Cultural Evaluation of the Early Parenting Attitudes Questionnaire
Previous research has studied the extent to which men are the default members of social groups in terms of memory, categorization, and stereotyping, but not attitudes which is critical because of attitudes’ relationship to behavior. Results from our survey (N > 5000) collected via a globally distributed laboratory network in over 40 regions demonstrated that attitudes toward Black people and politicians had a stronger relationship with attitudes toward the men rather than the women of the group. However, attitudes toward White people had a stronger relationship with attitudes toward White women than White men, whereas attitudes toward East Asian people, police officers, and criminals did not have a stronger relationship with attitudes toward either the men or women of each respective group. Regional agreement with traditional gender roles was explored as a potential moderator. These findings have implications for understanding the unique forms of prejudice women face around the world.
Petterson, Aino Lilja & Kunst, Jonas R. (2025)
Understanding Diversity in Norway: Ethnicity, Gender, Religion, and Social Class
Gundersen, Aleksander Bjørge; Linden, Sander van der, Piasecki, Jan, Rygula, Rafal, Noworyta, Karolina & Kunst, Jonas R. (2024)
Predicting Misinformation Beliefs Across Four Countries: The Role of Narcissism, Conspiracy Mentality, Social Trust, and Perceptions of Unsafe Neighborhoods
Many individuals like eating meat but condemn causing harm to animals. Dissociating meat from its animal origins is one way to avoid the cognitive dissonance this ‘meat paradox’ elicits. While the significance of meat-animal dissociation for meat consumption is well-established, a recent literature review suggested that it consists of two distinct tendencies. First, people may differ in the degree to which they passively disassociate meat from its animal origins. Second, they may differ in the extent to which they actively dissociate to decrease dissonance. By developing and validating a scale in three pre-registered studies using samples of American and British meat-eaters, the present investigation aimed to quantitatively establish whether these two proposed tendencies constitute distinct constructs with different relations to dietary preferences, meat-related cognition, and affect. Study 1 (n = 300) provided initial support for a normally-distributed scale with two orthogonal dimensions that were systematically and differently related to a range of individual differences and dietary preferences. In Study 2 (n = 628), both dimensions were non-responsive to short-term cues that highlight the animal-meat link but predicted dietary preferences independent of them. Finally, Study 3 (n = 231) showed that the dissociation dimensions predict dietary preferences even in people working in the meat industry who have long-term exposure to cues that connect meat with its animal origins. Together, the results of the three studies supported the notion that people’s dissociation tendencies can be divided into two qualitatively distinct tendencies. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed.
Kleppestø, Thomas Haarklau; Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi, Vassend, Olav Mandt, Røysamb, Espen, Eftedal, Nikolai Haahjem, Sheehy-Skeffington, Jennifer, Ystrøm, Eivind, Kunst, Jonas R., Gjerde, Line Cecilie & Thomsen, Lotte (2024)
Attachment and Political Personality are Heritable and Distinct Systems, and Both Share Genetics with Interpersonal Trust and Altruism
Psychological research has begun considering the dynamics involved in majority-group acculturation, which is the extent to which cultural majority groups adopt the culture of immigrants and minority groups. However, previous research has predominantly concentrated on reactions to ‘immigrants’ or ‘minority groups’ as a homogenous entity, overlooking the nuanced perceptions and varied valuations attributed to different groups. Recognizing the heterogeneity among immigrant and minority groups, the present work investigated the influence of several perceived characteristics of immigrant and minority groups on majority-group members' adoption of their cultures. Specifically, in three pre-registered studies—one correlational (Nparticipants = 201, Ntrials = 2814) and two within-subjects experimental (Nparticipants = 144 and 146, Ntrials = 720 and 730) designs with close to politically representative samples from the U.K. and U.S. —majority-group members were more willing to adopt immigrant and minority-group cultures that they perceived as warm, competent and moral because these perceptions made immigrants and minority groups seem indispensable to the identity and economy of the mainstream society. Our studies highlight the importance of considering the differentiated acculturation that majority-group members have to various groups within the same national context. We discuss the societal and cultural repercussions of this selective uptake of other cultures.
Kunst, Jonas R.; Gundersen, Aleksander Bjørge, Krysińska, Izabela, Piasecki, Jan, Wójtowicz, Tomi, Rygula, Rafal, Linden, Sander van der & Morzy, Mikolaj (2024)
Leveraging artificial intelligence to identify the psychological factors associated with conspiracy theory beliefs online
Kleppestø, Thomas Haarklau; Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi, Sheehy-Skeffington, Jennifer, Vassend, Olav, Røysamb, Espen, Eftedal, Nikolai Haahjem, Kunst, Jonas R., Ystrøm, Eivind & Thomsen, Lotte (2024)
The genetic underpinnings of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation explain political attitudes beyond Big Five personality
Objective: Political attitudes are predicted by the key ideological variables of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), as well as some of the Big Five personality traits. Past research indicates that personality and ideological traits are correlated for genetic reasons. A question that has yet to be tested concerns whether the genetic variation underlying the ideological traits of RWA and SDO has distinct contributions to political attitudes, or if genetic variation in political attitudes is subsumed under the genetic variation underlying standard Big Five personality traits. Method: We use data from a sample of 1987 Norwegian twins to assess the genetic and environmental relationships between the Big Five personality traits, RWA, SDO, and their separate contributions to political policy attitudes. Results: RWA and SDO exhibit very high genetic correlation (r = 0.78) with each other and some genetic overlap with the personality traits of openness and agreeableness. Importantly, they share a larger genetic substrate with political attitudes (e.g., deporting an ethnic minority) than do Big Five personality traits, a relationship that persists even when controlling for the genetic foundations underlying personality traits. Conclusion: Our results suggest that the genetic foundations of ideological traits and political attitudes are largely non-overlapping with the genetic foundations of Big Five personality traits.
Piksa, Michal; Noworyta, Karolina, Piasecki, Jan, Gundersen, Aleksander Bjørge, Kunst, Jonas R., Morzy, Mikolaj & Rygula, Rafal (2024)
Research Report: A Link between Sertraline Treatment and Susceptibility to (Mis)information
Muslims in the U.K. who maintain their religious culture are often viewed as a suspect community. This pre-registered experimental research examined the mediating role of perceived (dis)loyalty as underlying process and the moderating role of acculturation expectations. A total of 334 non-Muslim White British participants in Study 1 and 810 in Study 2 were asked to indicate their acculturation expectations towards Muslims. They were then randomly assigned to read a text that described Muslims in a fictional town as either (a) maintaining their religious culture or (b) adopting the mainstream British culture, or they read (c) a neutral control text. As expected, in Study 1, when Muslims were presented as maintaining their religious culture, trust decreased compared to the control group. Conversely, when described as adopting the mainstream culture, trust increased while support for surveillance of Muslims decreased. Both effects were mediated by the perception of Muslims being disloyal or loyal to the U.K in both studies, respectively. Perceived loyalty to their religious group did not significantly mediate any effect. We replicated these findings in Study 2. Moreover, we showed that describing Muslims as maintaining their religious culture decreased trust and increased support for surveillance especially among participants who expected Muslims to give up their religious culture. Moderated mediation analysis showed that these effects were partly mediated by perceived loyalty to the U.K. We discuss the societal implications of the findings for policymakers and Muslim leaders along with recommendations for future research.
Renvik, Tuuli Anna; Eskelinen, Viivi, Kunst, Jonas R., Jetten, Jolanda, Noll, Jolanda van der, Rohmann, Anette & Jasinskaja-Lahti, Inga (2023)
Support for religious minorities' rights among (non)religious national majority group members: A motivational approach to worldviews
Although life trajectories are frequently theorized to explain people’s attitudes toward different social groups, few studies have been able to directly assess their importance with suitable data. Addressing this gap and focusing on the development of general and domain-specific self-esteem, we report results from a population-based sample of Norwegians (N = 2,215) followed over 28 years and five time points from adolescence to midlife. Growth curve models demonstrated that irrespective of self-esteem domain, low levels of self-esteem in adolescence as well as a depressed self-esteem development over the next three decades were related to more overall opposition to social equality as well as more opposition to gender equality and immigration in midlife. The results held when controlling for participants’ baseline political orientations and other key covariates in adolescence. Our findings indicate that low self-esteem and a lack of posi- tive self-esteem development can be detrimental to harmonious intergroup relations in ever-diversifying societies. We discuss how future psychological interventions aimed at enhancing self-esteem may promote support for a more inclusive society.
Treider, John Melvin Gudnyson; Kunst, Jonas R. & Vuoskoski, Jonna Katariina (2023)
The influence of musical parameters and subjective musical ratings on perceptions of culture
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator coordinated three large-scale psychological studies to examine the effects of loss-gain framing, cognitive reappraisals, and autonomy framing manipulations on behavioral intentions and affective measures. The data collected (April to October 2020) included specific measures for each experimental study, a general questionnaire examining health prevention behaviors and COVID-19 experience, geographical and cultural context characterization, and demographic information for each participant. Each participant started the study with the same general questions and then was randomized to complete either one longer experiment or two shorter experiments. Data were provided by 73,223 participants with varying completion rates. Participants completed the survey from 111 geopolitical regions in 44 unique languages/dialects. The anonymized dataset described here is provided in both raw and processed formats to facilitate re-use and further analyses. The dataset offers secondary analytic opportunities to explore coping, framing, and self-determination across a diverse, global sample obtained at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be merged with other time-sampled or geographic data.
Kunst, Jonas R.; Juttemeier, Marilena, Bailey, April H., Anjum, Gulnaz, English, Alexander S., Obaidi, Milan, SAM, DAVID, Yaşın-Tekizoğlu, Fatma & Agyemang, Collins B. (2023)
Investigation of gender bias in the mental imagery of faces
People tend to think of the prototypical person as a man more than as a woman, but this bias has primarily been observed in language-based tasks. Here, we investigated whether this bias is also present in the mental imagery of faces. A preregistered cross-cultural reverse-correlation study including participants from six WEIRD and non-WEIRD countries varying in gender equality (i.e., China, Ghana, Norway, Pakistan, Turkey, and the US; N = 645) unexpectedly suggested that people imagine the face of a generic “person” more as a woman than as a man. Replicating this unexpected result, a second preregistered study (N = 115) showed that U.S. participants imagine the face of a typical person as being more similar to their imagined face of a woman than of a man. We discuss explanations for these unexpected findings, including the possibility that the prototypical person is male-biased—consistent with previous work—but the default face may be female-biased.
Gundersen, Aleksander Bjørge; Linden, Sander van der, Piksa, Michal, Morzy, Mikołaj, Piasecki, Jan, Rygula, Rafal, Gwiaździński, Paweł, Noworyta, Karolina & Kunst, Jonas R. (2023)
The role of perceived minority-group status in the conspiracy beliefs of factual majority groups
Do minority-group members welcome or reject that majority-group members adopt other cultures? Acculturation is commonly defined as a process of mutual accommodation. Yet, the acculturation of majority-group members has only recently received research attention. To date, we do not know the extent to which minority-group members expect majority-group members to adopt the culture of minority groups and/or to maintain their mainstream culture. Knowledge is also lacking about how these expectations relate to minority-group members’ own acculturation orientations and symbolic and realistic threat perceptions. We further do not know whether such associations are similar among minority- and majority-group members. To address these gaps, we surveyed 246 Muslim minority-group members and 247 White Christian majority-group members in the United Kingdom. Muslim minority-group members’ acculturation expectations towards majority-group members were normally distributed around the midpoint of the scale, suggesting that they did not reject majority-group acculturation on average. Acculturation expectations were correlated with symbolic and realistic threat perceptions among majority-group members but not among minority-group members. Cluster analyses showed that integrated Muslim minority-group members found it relatively important for majority-group members to adopt minority-group culture and to maintain their own culture. In sum, the results support the idea that minority-group members, at least in some contexts and settings, view acculturation as a mutual cultural change rather than as cultural appropriation.
Gwiaździński, Paweł; Gundersen, Aleksander Bjørge, Piksa, Michal, Krysińska, Izabela, Kunst, Jonas R., Noworyta, Karolina, Olejniuk, Agata, Morzy, Mikołaj, Rygula, Rafal, Wójtowicz, Tomi & Piasecki, Jan (2023)
Psychological interventions countering misinformation in social media: A scoping review
Eldor, David S.; Lindholm, Karine, Chavez, Maria H., Vassanyi, Sander, Badiane, Michelle O. I., Yaldizli, Kemal, Frøysa, Petter, Haugestad, Christian Andres Palacios & Kunst, Jonas R. (2022)
Resilience against radicalization and extremism in schools: Development of a psychometric scale
Finding communication strategies that effectively motivate social distancing continues to be a global public health priority during the COVID-19 pandemic. This cross-country, preregistered experiment (n = 25,718 from 89 countries) tested hypotheses concerning generalizable positive and negative outcomes of social distancing messages that promoted personal agency and reflective choices (i.e., an autonomy-supportive message) or were restrictive and shaming (i.e., a controlling message) compared with no message at all. Results partially supported experimental hypotheses in that the controlling message increased controlled motivation (a poorly internalized form of motivation relying on shame, guilt, and fear of social consequences) relative to no message. On the other hand, the autonomy-supportive message lowered feelings of defiance compared with the controlling message, but the controlling message did not differ from receiving no message at all. Unexpectedly, messages did not influence autonomous motivation (a highly internalized form of motivation relying on one’s core values) or behavioral intentions. Results supported hypothesized associations between people’s existing autonomous and controlled motivations and self-reported behavioral intentions to engage in social distancing. Controlled motivation was associated with more defiance and less long-term behavioral intention to engage in social distancing, whereas autonomous motivation was associated with less defiance and more short- and long-term intentions to social distance. Overall, this work highlights the potential harm of using shaming and pressuring language in public health communication, with implications for the current and future global health challenges.
Kunst, Jonas R.; Kirkøen, Jannicke & Mohamdain, Onab (2022)
Hacking attractiveness biases in hiring? The role of beautifying photo-filters
Abstract
Purpose
Physically less attractive job applicants are discriminated against in hiring decisions. In a US context, the authors tested whether appearance-altering photo-filters can exploit this bias, focusing on the moderating role of job type, gender and race as well the mediating role of two major dimensions of person perception (warmth and competence).
Design/methodology/approach
In study 1, 223 managers evaluated White mock applicants presented with or without a beautifying filter for either a position as a social worker or an IT specialist. In study 2, 212 managers evaluated Black and White mock applicants with or without beautifying filters for an HR specialist position.
Findings
In study 1, beautifying filters increased perceived hireability irrespective of job type, but especially when applicants were female. Both male and female applicants whose photos were filtered were perceived as more competent, but only male applicants were perceived as warmer. In study 2, beautifying filters increased the hireability only slightly for White female applicants, followed by White and Black male applicants but substantially for Black female applicants. The filters increased the perceived competence of Black (and especially Black female) applicants but not of White applicants and increased the perceived warmth of all groups except for White females. Warmth and competence partially mediated the observed effects on hireability in both studies.
Originality/value
In the context of widely available technological advances, the authors show that beautifying photo-filters can exploit attractiveness biases, at least at an early hiring stage. The results emphasize the importance of intersecting factors such as gender and race.
Obaidi, Milan; Kunst, Jonas R., Ozer, Simon & Kimel, Sasha Y. (2021)
The “Great Replacement” conspiracy: How the perceived ousting of Whites can evoke violent extremism and Islamophobia
The #FridaysForFuture movement has attracted young activists around the world. In the present mixed-method, socio-cultural psychological research, we investigate people's motivations for joining the movement in the privileged yet paradoxical context of Norway – a country that has gathered most of its wealth through oil production (i.e., the Norwegian Paradox). In Study 1, from a thematic analysis of in-depth ethnographic fieldwork from a series of major strikes and interviews with protestors (N = 93) it emerged that attributing responsibility for climate change, a necessity for shared action to mitigate the effects of climate change, and a shared sense of collective identity, helped to galvanize the prolonged social movement. These inductive and ecologically valid findings, combined with existing theory, in Study 2, partially confirmed and extended the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA; van Zomeren et al., 2008) with survey data from high school students (N = 362). Collective guilt, environmental threat, past protest participation, organized environmentalism, political orientation, and social capital predicted future protest intentions, whereas activist identification and group efficacy mediated these effects. We discuss how the understanding of global environmental movements from the perspective of participants, who are both structurally responsible for the crisis and will experience most of its consequences themselves, can contribute to the broader discussion on facilitating climate action within privileged contexts.
Kunst, Jonas R.; Lefringhausen, Katharina, Skaar, Sara With & Obaidi, Milan (2021)
Who adopts the culture of ethnic minority groups? A personality perspective on majority-group members’ acculturation
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world.
Eskelinen, Viivi; Renvik, Tuuli Anna, Pauha, Teemu, Jetten, Jolanda, Kunst, Jonas R., Noll, Jolanda van der, Rohmann, Anette & Jasinskaja-Lahti, Inga (2021)
Disentangling national and religious identification as predictors of support for religious minority rights among Christian majority groups
Revisiting the Integration Hypothesis: Correlational and Longitudinal Meta-Analyses Demonstrate the Limited Role of Acculturation for Cross-Cultural Adaptation
Pauha, Teemu; Tuuli, Anna Renvik, Eskelinen, Viivi, Jetten, Jolanda, Noll, Jolanda van der, Kunst, Jonas R., Rohmann, Anette & Jasinskaja-Lahti, Inga (2020)
The Attitudes of Deconverted and Lifelong Atheists Towards Religious Groups: The Role of Religious and Spiritual Identity
Kleppestø, Thomas Haarklau; Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi, Vassend, Olav, Røysamb, Espen, Eftedal, Nikolai Haahjem, Sheehy-Skeffington, Jennifer, Kunst, Jonas R. & Thomsen, Lotte (2019)
Correlations between social dominance orientation and political attitudes reflect common genetic underpinnings
Little is known about how climatic differences may psychologically impact individuals who migrate from one geographical area to another. A climatic demand theory perspective suggests that migration from more demanding climatic areas to less demanding climatic areas would lead to better psychological outcomes while predicting the opposite for migration from less demanding to more demanding climates. In contrast, a climatic‐fit perspective would predict that moving to areas that climatically are similar to one's home would lead to the best psychological outcomes whereas any major deviation would lead to worse outcomes. To test these competing perspectives, a longitudinal, multisite study was conducted with over 1,000 student migrants who moved from various areas in China to 12 cities. Participants’ life satisfaction and perceived stress were assessed upon arrival and at the end of the semester together with their sociocultural adaptation. Supporting the climatic‐fit perspective, multilevel analyses showed that participants reported the least stress and highest sociocultural adaptation when they migrated to host sites that were climatically similar to their homes. Conversely, individuals who migrated from very demanding to less demanding climatic regions and vice versa reported an increase in stress and lower sociocultural adaptation.
Benningstad, Nora C. G & Kunst, Jonas R. (2019)
Dissociating meat from its animal origins: A systematic literature review
In many Western countries, the public has extensively debated factors potentially leading Muslim minority-group members to support violence by foreign extremist states or to commit violence themselves. Here, one central question has been whether their acculturation orientations may play a role. Combining perspectives from intergroup threat theory and acculturation psychology, the present study investigated whether one reason for why threat perceptions lead to higher violent behavioral intentions among Muslims, as evidence by previous research, may be that they are related to distinct acculturation orientations. It tested this proposition in two samples comprising of Norwegian (N = 253) and British Muslims (N = 194). The more Norwegian Muslims perceived realistic threat, the more violent behavioral intentions they showed, but this relation was not mediated by acculturation. Among British Muslims, mainstream acculturation orientation was related to more violent intentions, while threat was not. In both samples, symbolic threat was associated with more support for Muslim military violence and this relationship was mediated by religious acculturation in the U.K. In contrast to previous research, symbolic threat was linked with less personal intentions to commit violence in the U.K., mediated by religious acculturation. Complementary analyses calculating acculturation strategies indicated that assimilated, and to some extend integrated, Muslims in both countries tended to show the highest violent behavioral intentions. By contrast, separated individuals showed the highest level of support for Muslim military violence. Ways in which these findings can be used to counter violence and improve intergroup relations in Western ethnically diverse societies are discussed.
Gundersen, Aleksander & Kunst, Jonas R. (2018)
Feminist ≠ Feminine? Feminist Women Are Visually Masculinized Whereas Feminist Men Are Feminized
People with mental disorders often face prejudices that can further deteriorate their condition. We tested whether Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), Right‐Wing Authoritarianism (RWA), and Belief in a Just World (BJW), and characteristics of the mentally ill predict such prejudices. Both in a general population sample and a sample of health professionals and trainees, SDO, but not RWA and BJW, predicted more prejudice, although this pattern was less pronounced among health professionals/trainees. BJW interacted with the targets' gender in Study 1, predicting less empathy toward a male but not toward a female mentally ill person. In Study 2, depressed individuals were blamed more for their illness than those with schizophrenia or cancer. Implications for future research and clinical practice are discussed.
Haugen, Ingvild & Kunst, Jonas R. (2017)
A two-way process? A qualitative and quantitative investigation of majority members’ acculturation
Islamophobic sentiments in the Western world have gained scientific attention, particularly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. However, the effects of religious stigma on Muslim minorities’ identity formation have rarely been studied. Using structural equation modeling, this cross-sectional study examined direct and indirect effects of different forms of religious stigma on the national affiliation of 210 Norwegian-Pakistani and 216 German-Turkish Muslims. Furthermore, the study examined the mediator role of religious identity. Our results suggest that being a Muslim in Norway is more reconcilable with affiliating with the nation than being a Muslim in Germany. However, across the samples, the results indicated that various forms of religious stigma affected Muslims’ national identity and engagement in the public and private sphere in distinct ways. These effects were both positive and negative, differed between the two samples, and in Germany, were mediated by the participants’ religious identity. The findings indicated that the ways in which religious stigma influences Muslims’ national affiliation is context and culture bound.
Kunst, Jonas R.; Jaffery, Lubna & Mohamed, Ammal Ahmed Haj (2025)
Strategi for ytringsfrihet: Desinformasjon, ekkokammer og polarisering bekymrer
[Kronikk]
Kunst, Jonas R. (2025)
Slik blir unge ekstreme på nett
[Kronikk]
– Selv i de ekstreme miljøene var de litt sjokkerte over hvordan enkelte plattformer sprer innholdet deres, sier journalist som fulgte ekstreme grupper på internett.
Harris, Samantha Marie; Bye, Hege Høivik & Kunst, Jonas R. (2025)
Innvandrere er mer åpne for psykisk helsehjelp enn vi tror – og enn de tror selv
[Kronikk]
Kunst, Jonas R. (2025)
Vil vaksinere gutta mot hatpropaganda
[Kronikk]
Kunst, Jonas R. & Lefringhausen, Katharina (2024)
Investigating the forgotten side of acculturation: Introduction to the special issue
[Kronikk]
Kunst, Jonas R. (2022)
Reinventing Academic Publishing
[Kronikk]
Kunst, Jonas R. (2025)
From reactive interventions to preventive epistemology: Identifying systemic psychological vulnerabilities to misinformation and conspiracy theories
[Conference Lecture]. Event
Kunst, Jonas R. (2025)
Sannhet under press? Desinformasjon, algoritmer og virkelighetsforståelse i vår tid
[Lecture]. Event
Kunst, Jonas R. (2025)
The psychological drivers of science denialism
[Lecture]. Event
Kunst, Jonas R. (2025)
Reframing Acculturation – The Neglected Aspects of Majority Group Change
[Conference Lecture]. Event
Kunst, Jonas R. (2025)
From Response to Prevention: Addressing Root Psychological Factors in Misinformation Susceptibility
[Conference Lecture]. Event
Kunst, Jonas R. (2025)
Rethinking Acculturation – The Neglected Side of Cultural Change in Majority Groups
[Conference Lecture]. Event
Haugestad, Christian Andres Palacios; Skauge, Anja Duun, Kunst, Jonas R. & Power, Seamus (2021)
Imagining the future in social movements as a driver for social change
[Conference Lecture]. Event
Kleppestø, Thomas Haarklau; Czajkowski, Nikolai Olavi, Vassend, Olav, Røysamb, Espen, Eftedal, Nikolai Haahjem, Kunst, Jonas R., Sheehy-Skeffington, Jennifer & Thomsen, Lotte (2019)
Social dominance orientation has both genetic and unique environmental influences, but only genetic pleiotropy accounts for its correlation with political attitudes.
[Conference Lecture]. Event
Skauge, Anja Duun; Kunst, Jonas R. & Power, Seamus (2019)
“They say the youth is the future yet they won´t listen to them” A mixed-method cultural psychological study of #FridaysForFuture in the Norwegian context.
[Conference Lecture]. Event
Haugestad, Christian Andres Palacios & Kunst, Jonas R. (2018)
A cross-cultural demonstration on the effects of dissociation on willingness to eat meat and how they are moderated by exposure to unprocessed meat
[Conference Lecture]. Event
Kunst, Jonas R.; Sam, David Lackland & Ulleberg, Pål (2013)
Developing and Validating a Scale to Measure Muslim Minorities' Perceptions of Societal Islamophobia
[Conference Poster]. Event
Kunst, Jonas R. & Sam, David Lackland (2013)
A Critical Investigation of Marginalization as an Acculturation Strategy in a Globalized World
[Conference Lecture]. Event
Kunst, Jonas R.; Tajamal, Hajra, Sam, David Lackland & Ulleberg, Pål (2012)
The influences of religious stigma on Muslim minorities’ national affiliation and engagement
