A recent publication has come out in the journal Entropy where the authors use Shannon information to quantify changes in (reported) affordances and their connection to social psychological scales such as neoliberalism, ethnocentrism, and Islamophobia. Social-political climates in the Western world keep harshening toward immigrants (and Muslim immigrants in particular) and the largest public media corporations continue to contribute to those perspectives. This paper picks up on how these ways of relating to Muslim immigrants affect decisions to include or exclude a fictional family that moves in next door. The authors connect scenario- and survey-based methods with a dynamic narrative that continues the scenario with additional situations. Participants respond after each situation if they change their decision to include and exclude the family. One of the interesting results is that participants who report high adherence to neoliberal, ethnocentric, and Islamophobic statements also have high entropy, meaning that uncertainty is higher in their (reported) affordances. A larger sample size and extended theorizing is needed to more strongly support the claim that this can indicate higher trust in those with low adherence since they will include and not exclude their neighbors.
Link to article: https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/28/5/545
