Interventions Highlighting Hypocrisy Reduce Collective Blame of Muslims for Individual Acts of Violence and Assuage anti-Muslim Hostility

Collectively blaming groups for the actions of individuals can license vicarious retribution. Acts of terrorism by Muslim extremists against innocents, and the spikes in anti-Muslim hate crimes against innocent Muslims that follow, suggest that reciprocal bouts of collective blame can spark cycles of violence. How can this cycle be shortcircuited? After establishing a link between collective blame of Muslims and anti-Muslim attitudes and behavior, we used an ‘interventions tournament’ to identify a successful intervention (among many that failed). The ‘winning’ intervention reduced collective blame of Muslims by highlighting hypocrisy in the ways individuals collectively blame Muslims – but not other groups (White Americans, Christians) – for individual group members’ actions. After replicating the effect in an independent sample, we demonstrate that a novel interactive activity that isolates the psychological mechanism amplifies the effectiveness of the collective blame hypocrisy intervention and results in downstream reductions in anti-Muslim attitudes and anti-Muslim behavior.