Perceived threat and prejudice towards immigrants in Finland: A study among early, middle, and late Finnish adolescents

Abstract

Using integrated threat theory (ITT), this study examined how perceived threat, or fear of immigrants, manifests among early, middle, and late Finnish adolescents and the relationship between perceived threat and prejudice among Early, Middle, and Late adolescents. The total sample consisted of 795 Finnish adolescents between 11 and 19 years of age. Realistic and symbolic threats were the most perceived threats and were more prevalent among Late Adolescents. There was a positive relationship between prejudice and realistic threat and between prejudice and symbolic threat, but a negative relationship between prejudice and negative stereotyping and this relationship remained relatively stable from early to late adolescence. Implications are also discussed.

School Satisfaction in Immigrant and Chilean Students: The Role of Prejudice and Cultural Self-Efficacy

“…Other studies (van Zalk and Kerr, 2014;Titzmann et al, 2015) have reported a reduction of prejudice on late adolescence. To the contrary, our finding supports other research outcomes which found an increment of prejudice across this period of life (Hooghe et al, 2013;Ngwayuh and Croucher, 2017;Nshom and Croucher, 2018). The aforementioned studies have proposed that during the transition to adulthood, native adolescents tend to perceive increasing levels of intergroup threats, being more sensitive and concerned about ingroup interests.…”

“…While some studies (e.g., Raabe and Beelmann, 2011) have found no developmental trends in adolescence, other researches (van Zalk and Kerr, 2014;Titzmann et al, 2015) have informed that prejudice tends to decrease in late adolescence. Conversely, other studies (Hooghe et al, 2013;Ngwayuh and Croucher, 2017;Nshom and Croucher, 2018) have reported an increase of prejudice through this period, proposing that at the end of adolescence, youngsters could be more prone to perceive outgroups' members as competitors for material resources, which might lead to higher levels of intergroup threat perception.…”

The Role of Immigration Background, Intergroup Processes, and Social‐Cognitive Skills in Bystanders’ Responses to Bias‐Based Bullying Toward Immigrants During Adolescence

“…However, we varied the reason for bullying across the scenarios. For bias‐based bullying, we chose immigrants as our target of bias‐based bullying since immigrants are an understudied marginalized group that is exposed to discrimination and prejudice due to their group status (Brown, Ali, Stone, & Jewell, 2017; Nshom & Croucher, 2017). For general bullying, we choose “shyness” as the targeted individual characteristic as it is one of the important underlying reasons for peer victimization in general bullying contexts (e.g., Jantzer, Hoover, & Narloch, 2006).…”

The Capricious Nature of Theory of Mind: Does Mental State Understanding Depend on the Characteristics of the Target?

“…According to Integrated Threat Theory (ITT), threat perception is crucial for understanding the roots of prejudice (Stephan et al, 2002). ITT posits that realistic threats (to an in-group's power, material resources, or general welfare) and symbolic threats (to an in-group's identity, values, norms, and way of living) cause prejudice, discrimination and aggression toward some groups, including immigrants, and refugees (Nshom & Croucher, 2017;Stephan, Ybarra, & Bachman, 1999). Threat perception is also known to influence children's interactions with out-group members.…”