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The Communication Latency of Antisemitic Attitudes: an Experimental Study

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The Communication Latency of Antisemitic Attitudes: an Experimental Study The Communication Latency of Antisemitic Attitudes: An Experimental Study Heiko Beyer.* and Ivar Krumpal** 1. INTRODUCTION There might not be a discourse of more significance for the political culture of Western countries than the one grappling with the crimes of National Socialism against the Jews. The project of “re-education” not only had to fight the strong tradition of antisemitic and authoritarian resentments in Germany, but necessarily became an act of self-definition of liberal societies. Antisemitism research has elaborated its views on modern antisemitism since 1945 and has developed theoretical enhancements of classical approaches.1 Recent forms of antisemitism like “secondary antisemitism” (Schönbach 1961; Adorno 1997), “anti-Zionism” or “new antisemitism” (Rosenbaum 2004; Rabinovici et al. 2004) and “structural antisemitism” (Haury 2002) can be understood as reactions to the heightened public awareness and ostracism of antisemitic prejudices. The persecution and social sanctioning of antisemitic attitudes and opinions has influenced theoretical concepts and explanations within antisemitism research to some extent. However, it has had only a weak effect on methodological considerations such as how to obtain valid measures of antisemitic attitudes. Sensitive questions in surveys are often perceived as too intrusive or even threaten- ing, since they potentially require the interviewees to disclose behaviors or attitudes that violate social norms: “A question is sensitive when it asks for a socially undesirable answer, when it asks, in effect, that the respondent admits he or she has violated a social norm” (Tourangeau & Yan 2007: 860). Based on survey research, it is known that direct measurement of behaviors and attitudes that violate social norms yields socially desir- able responses (Stocké 2004; Schnell et al. 2005; Diekmann 2008; Krumpal 2009, 2010). Interviewees tend to misreport on sensitive issues such as criminal behavior or unsocial attitudes (Van Koolwijk 1969; Lee 1993).2 * Research Associate, Department of Agricultural and Rural Development, Chair of Sociology of Rural Areas, Georg-August University, Goettingen. ** Senior researcher, University of Leipzig, Department of Sociology. 1 This paper focuses on attitudes and their communication. An attitude is, “… a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor” (Eagly and Chaiken 1993: 1). 2 There are two possible directions of social desirability bias: systematic “underreporting” of socially undesirable characteristics and systematic “overreporting” of socially desirable ones. 83 © Heiko Beyer and Ivar Krumpal, 2013 | doi 10.1163/9789004265561_010Heiko Beyer and Ivar Krumpal - 9789004265561 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NCDownloaded 4.0 license. from Brill.com09/26/2021 06:43:18AM via free access 84 HEIKO BEYER AND IVAR KRUMPAL The question must therefore be raised how antisemitism, being a “sensitive topic,” can be measured at all if we assume that (at least) a subset of antisemitic interviewees are aware of the public norm of anti-antisemitism, interpret surveys as public situations, and therefore underreport their antisemitic attitudes. Previous research concludes that in the context of population surveys, antisemitic attitudes are reported truthfully on the whole (Bergmann & Erb 1991a, 1991b). This conclusion is based upon empirical findings indicating that interviewees who perceive the topic “Jews” as “sensitive” nevertheless show high levels of agreement with items reflecting antisemitic attitudes (Bergmann & Erb 1991b: 282). We argue that questions about the perceived sensitivity of the topic “Jews” can be considered as sensitive as the ones asking about actual opinions toward Jews. It is possible that underreporting already occurs when questions about the perceived sensi- tivity are being asked, i.e. a subset of antisemites might give socially desirable answers to the questions about their actual opinion toward Jews as well as to the questions about the perceived sensitivity of the topic “Jews.” The possible conclusion of the researcher about the existence of antisemitic attitudes drawn from a defensive stance against the topic “Jews” might not be that difficult for the common perception as presupposed by Bergmann and Erb. Previous methodological and social-psychological studies show that the survey design and the question context may have an impact on socially desirable response behavior (Schwarz & Bayer 1989; Strack 1992; Tourangeau & Yan 2007). Following these findings, we use an experimental design to demonstrate the effect of question context on socially desirable response behavior in a survey on antisemitism. We experimentally manipulate the temporary cognitive accessibility of antisemitic primary group norms by randomly assigning interviewees to complete an antisemitism scale either before or after assessing the attitudes of their friends (peer group networks of friends are assumed to be the respec- tive primary group in our case).3 We demonstrate a significant interaction effect between question order and primary group norms on the propensity to self-report antisemitic attitudes. Our results indicate that the interviewees are more likely to reveal antisemitic attitudes when their friends share an antisemitic norm and when this norm is cognitively activated before self-assessment. Section 2 will outline the theoretical connection between antisemitism theory and survey psychology, and section 3 will present the results of our empirical study in more detail. We will draw some final conclusions in section 4. 2. THEORY AND HYPOTHESES 2.1 Concept and theory of antisemitism Although we can distinguish several theoretical approaches that attempt to explain modern antisemitism before 1945, most of them insisting on its peculiarity both in comparison to the older anti-Judaism and other forms of racism (see Fein 1987; Berg- mann 1988; Salzborn 2010), the development of a comprehensive theory dealing with 3 Such variation of question order is assumed to trigger “context effects” (also known as “halo- effects,” see Nisbett & Wilson 1977) of previous questions on the answer process of subsequent questions by cognitively activating information in the previous questions that is relevant for answering the subsequent questions. Heiko Beyer and Ivar Krumpal - 9789004265561 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 06:43:18AM via free access THE COMMUNICATION LATENCY OF ANTISEMITIC ATTITUDES 85 antisemitism after the Shoah is still in its infancy. In Germany, the first efforts in this regard were made by the “Critical Theory of Antisemitism” and particularly the empiri- cal studies of the re-emigrated Frankfurt Institute of Social Science, which brought to light not only that antisemitic attitudes have remained present since 1945 on a more private level, although they are seemingly combated on the surface of public decision making (see Böhm 1955), but also argued that guilt and its suppression forms a new reservoir for aggression against Jews within German society (this is what Schönbach in 1961 first called “secondary antisemitism”; see also Adorno 1997). Also, within the “German Left” (Broder 1976; Brumlik 1986), we find the first self-critical discussions about anti-Zionism as a new and more accepted form of antisemitism that emerged from the New Left in the 1960s and has also become popular in radical Islamism. This “new antisemitism” (see Rosenbaum 2004; Chesler 2005; Rabinovici et al. 2004)—the label under which it is mainly discussed in the Anglo-American context—is, just like secon- dary antisemitism, a reaction to the sanctioning of genuine antisemitism and stems partly from new sources, but remains connected to the old resentment to a certain degree. Bergmann and Erb (1986) grasp anti-Zionism as a form of “detour communication” for genuine antisemitism. Their concept of “communication latency” tries to accentuate the social latency of antisemitism after 1945 in contrast to a mere psychological latency. “Latency” is explicitly used in regard to social and not psychological functions. The communication latency of antisemitism in the German Federal Republic offers the basis for integration within the Western alliance without actually having to deal with the past. In this regard, the media and the education system are supposed to carry on the new raison d’état of anti-antisemitism in making clear what to say in public discourse and what not. The differentiation between communication latency and psychological latency postu- lates that antisemitic attitudes remain conscious but are not articulated publicly. Anti- semites have the urge to articulate their attitudes, but such communication occurs beyond the public level (Bergmann & Erb 1986: 230). New communication channels need to be found for the expression of antisemitism. The authors discuss two possibili- ties: “consensus groups” (such as right-wing networks) and “detour communication” (such as anti-Zionism). If the focus merely rests on genuine antisemitic prejudices expressed publicly, the fact that antisemitism persists latently will be ignored. It is this persistence that is of relevance for the study of new forms of antisemitism and their relation to genuine resentments. The simple replacement of the term “Jew” with the term “Israeli,” for example, is often used to camouflage what can be detected, when examined more closely, as a clear case of antisemitism. Without such a closer examination
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