125 4 Results What shapes voter expectations of Muslim politicians’ views on homosexuality: stereotyping or projection? To answer this question, I first present the distribution of attitudes on whether “homosexual couples are allowed to adopt children” in Figure 1. I then show the extent to which stereotyping (Figure 2), projection (Figure 3), and stereotyping and projection combined (Figure 4) can predict voters’ expectations about the policy positions of Muslim politicians. Furthermore, I show that flankers and moderates differ in their perceived similarities with people who practice Islam (Figure 5) and that this perceived similarity predicts projection amongst pro-flankers (Figure 6). I conclude that stereotyping and projection both occur, but that stereotyping mostly occurs amongst moderates and that projection occurs mostly amongst flankers. Figure 1. Histogram of responses to ‘homosexual couples are allowed to adopt children’ Figure 1 shows that attitudes towards same-sex adoption is somewhat tri-polar in nature. 44 percent of respondents answered ten (fully agree that homosexual couples are allowed to adopt children), pro-flankers. Thirteen percent of respondents answered zero (fully disagree with the statement), anti-flankers. Most answer options between one and nine remain under eight percent, except for the eleven percent of respondents who placed themselves in the exact middle, answering five on the scale from zero to ten. 43 percent of respondents answered 1 to 9, moderates. See the appendix for a histogram with the exact percentages. I also separately present all data for each country in the appendix. The most
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