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.
In response to the COVID‐19 pandemic, societies face the formidable challenge of developing sustainable forms of sociability‐cumsocial‐distancing – enduring social life while containing the virus and preventing new outbreaks. Accordant public policies often balance between retributive (punishment‐based) and assistance (solidarity‐based) measures to foster responsible behaviour. Yet, the uncontrolled spreading of the disease has divided public opinion about which measures are best suited, and it has made salient group disparities in behaviour, potentially straining intergroup relations, elevating heated emotions, and undercutting coordinated international responses. In a 2 × 2 between‐subjects experiment, British citizens (
N
= 377) read about national in‐group or outgroup members (categorical differentiation), who were either conforming to or deviating from the corona regulations (normative differentiation). Participants then reported moral emotions towards the target national group and indicated support for public policies. In general, support for assistance policies outweighed support for retributive measures. Second, however, norm deviation was associated with less positive and more negative moral emotions, the latter category further relating to more punitiveness and less assistance support. Finally, respondents who read about norm‐violating outgroup members especially reported support for retributive measures, indicating that people might use norm deviation to justify outgroup derogation. We discuss implications for policymakers and formulate future research avenues.
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