Competition- and Identity-based Roots of Anti-immigration Prejudice among Individuals with and without an Immigrant Background

Abstract

Most social psychological research on anti-immigration prejudice has examined the point of view of the national ingroup-generally defined as the citizens of the country under consideration-toward immigrant outgroups. Threat perceptions related to immigration as well as national identification have been shown to underlie negative attitudes. Whether these two factors also explain attitudes among individuals sharing characteristics with the immigrants remains largely unstudied. To fill this gap, the present research examines perceived threat, national identification, and different facets of anti-immigration prejudice among Swiss residents with and without an immigrant background. Results of a path model conducted on data from the International Social Survey Programme 2013 (N = 1,198) showed that, as expected, natives reported higher levels of prejudice than both citizens of foreign descent and immigrants. While group differences in prejudice were in part explained by differences in threat perceptions, the role of national identification was more nuanced. Altogether, these findings suggest that social psychological research should go beyond simplistic "national ingroup vs. immigrant outgroup" conceptualisations when examining anti-immigration prejudice.

The interplay between social dominance orientation and intergroup contact in explaining support for multiculturalism

“…Cronbach's alphas, means, and standard deviations by experimental condition, and correlation between variables are reported in Table 3. Because individuals with dual nationality have a mixed national, and sometimes also ethnic, background, they may support multiculturalism more than individuals who are exclusively Swiss citizens (see e.g., Sarrasin, Green, Bolzman, Visintin, & Politi, 2018). In an additional analysis, we controlled for Swiss only (coded −1) versus dual (coded + 1) nationality.…”

If you want to be one of us, then become like us: The evaluation of naturalization applicants by host nationals

“…To extend the present findings, future research should not only focus on members of the national majority group, but also include individuals with an immigrant background in the sample (for a similar argument, see Sarrasin, Green, Bolzman, Visintin, & Politi, ; Sarrasin, Green, Fasel, & Davidov, ). Compared to nationals, the latter may in fact focus on different dimensions of acculturation (e.g., more favorable attitude towards heritage culture maintenance and lower importance granted to attachment to the host nation), thereby disclosing different evaluations of naturalization applicants.…”

Between solidarity and competitive threat?

“…Empirical research shows that anti-immigrant attitudes are not only prevalent among the native majority group, but also among ethnic minorities (Callens et al, 2014;Hindriks et al, 2014;Mustafa & Richards, 2018;Philip, Mahalingam, & Sellers, 2010;Staerklé et al, 2005). Admittedly, anti-immigrant attitudes are less outspoken among ethnic minorities than among natives (Gorodzeisky & Glikman, 2017;Sarrasin et al, 2018;Van der Zwan, Bles, & Lubbers, 2017), but are nevertheless a relevant phenomenon to understand intergroup relations in superdiverse societies. The presence of negative inter-minority attitudes may be an indication that established ethnic minority members' position toward newcomers strikes a balance between threat and solidarity.…”

“…Because of their vulnerable position, they are among the first to experience or perceive zero-sum competition and identity threat emanating from the arrival of new immigrant groups, which can induce prejudiced attitudes toward these groups (Semyonov, Raijman, & Yon-Tov, 2002). In that respect, the underlying group conflict and social identity mechanisms generating prejudice seem to run in parallel for majority and minority groups (Hindriks, Verkuyten, & Coenders, 2017;Sarrasin et al, 2018;Van der Zwan et al, 2017). On the other hand, established minority group members share a number of constitutive characteristics with newcomers, such as experiences related to having a migration background, moving to another country, occupying subordinate social positions compared to the dominant group, stigmatization, discrimination and, in some cases, cultural or community ties.…”

“…There is no apparent reason why well-established ethnic minority groups would be exempt from prejudices or exclusionist attitudes towards 'new immigrants' (Hindriks, Verkuyten, & Coenders, 2014;Mustafa & Richards, 2018;Sarrasin, Green, Bolzman, Visintin, & Politi, 2018;Staerklé, Sidanius, Green, & Molina, 2005). Roughly stated, there are two broad theoretical arguments concerning established ethnic minorities' attitudes towards new immigrants that lead to competing expectations (Craig & Richeson, 2012Just & Anderson, 2015).…”