Wording that conflates American with non-Muslim signals Muslims are outsiders

Evidence

Participants provided feedback on what they thought each item asked about, how they would answer each item, preferred response option scales, and the phrasing and wording of each item. In items that ask about how others perceive Muslims, participants overwhelming endorsed the use of “non-Muslims” versus “Americans,” as using “American” implies that Muslims are not American. Other notable findings included specifying that each item is asking about the United States and adding “In the U.S.” to certain items. Participants said specifying that the item is about the United States cued them to think of anti-Muslim discrimination in the United States and not anti-Muslim discrimination in other countries. An example of how this feedback was incorporated into the scale is the rephrasing of “Americans are welcoming of Muslims” to “In the U.S., non-Muslims are welcoming of Muslims.” — Naheed Ahmed, Measurement of Perceived Interpersonal…, 57

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the published piece on complaints about immodesty, where dress and labeling function as class and identity signaling.
• SEED: An essay on how survey and census wording quietly encodes who counts as a national — ‘American’ as a covert exclusion category.
• DEFINE: Demonstrates cognitive interviewing as a method: probing how respondents interpret items before fielding them.