Building interreligious peace: Studying determinants of individual preferences for interreligious contact in Togo and Sierra Leone

Individual preferences for similar others are an important barrier to intergroup contact and, thus, peaceful intergroup relations. A growing literature investigated what shapes individual preferences for intergroup contact but more research on changeable factors that can be targeted by interventions remains warranted. We focus on interreligious contact and set out to identify determinants of preferences for interacting with religiously similar others. We expect inclusive religious ideas, more adaptive coping and emotion regulation skills, and knowledge on outgroup religious practices to be related to weaker preferences for similar others. Further, we argue that the strength of the associations between religious ideas, coping and emotion regulation skills, and knowledge of outgroup religious practices and preferences for similar others may depend on the level of interreligious peace in the neighborhood. We test these hypotheses using survey data collected in 50 neighborhoods of Lomé and Freetown, the capitals of Togo and Sierra Leone (N = 2003). To account for neighborhood differences regarding interreligious peace, we also use data from expert group surveys conducted in the same neighborhoods as the survey (N=50).