Friend–Enemy Divided Thinking from the Perspective of Intergroup Conflict: Relationship with International Attitudes and Conspiracy Beliefs

Abstract

The cognitive process of social categorization and perceived outgroup threat leads to the perception of the world as divided into intergroup conflict relations between enemy and friend groups—termed “friend–enemy divided thinking.” This study proposes the concept of friend–enemy divided thinking from the perspective of intergroup conflict and examines how this concept affects (1) political attitudes toward international relations and (2) conspiracy beliefs, which are closely related to intergroup conflict. A survey was conducted in Japan ( N = 735). The results showed that the stronger the friend–enemy divided thinking is, the stronger the conspiracy beliefs are. People with stronger friend–enemy divided thinking felt threatened by national defense and immigration and supported negative policies against international relations. Both conspiracy beliefs and negative political attitudes toward national defense and immigration in international relations were interpreted to be associated with the perception of a hostile intergroup conflict that is heightened by friend–enemy divided thinking.