| Abstract: | The main purpose of the present study was to assess the relative importance of attitudinal versus religious similarity on the neighborhood preferences of Lebanese university students shortly after the 1975–1976 war in Lebanon.It was expected that neighborhood preference for a stranger would be affected by: (1) attitudinal similarity — dissimilarity on an important political issue and by (2) the number of strangers involved.The subjects were 169 Lebanese undergraduate students at the American University of Beirut (67 Christians, 96 Muslims, with six subjects not mentioning religious affiliation). In terms of political ideology, 38 subjects were conservative while 131 were liberal and, with respect to displacement during the war, 81 subjects stated that they were displaced while 88 subjects indicated that they remained in their original neighborhoods. Finally, with respect to ethnic (or national) origin, 118 subjects considered themselves as “Arabs” while 48 indicated that their origin was something “other” than Arab, with the remaining three subjects not responding to this item.The results showed that, irrespective of the background characteristics of the subjects, (1) strangers of a different religion who had the same attitudes on an important political issue were significantly more preferred as neighbors than coreligionist strangers who had opposite attitudes on the same issue, and (2) neighborhood preference was significantly greater for one than for many strangers. However, although one stranger was significantly more preferred as a neighbor than many, this preference was found to be stronger under the opposite attitude — same religion condition. |
