Need for closure effect on collective action intentions and behavior toward immigrants in Italy: The mediation of binding foundations and political conservatism

Abstract

Why are people (de)motivated to mobilize in favor of immigrants? Addressing this question, we investigated the role of individuals' epistemic motivation (i.e., need for closure) in influencing the process of becoming motivated to participate in collective action in favor of immigrants in Italy. Specifically, the mediational role of binding moral foundations and political conservatism in explaining the relationship between need for closure and collective action in favor of immigrants was examined in three studies. It was hypothesized that a heightened need for closure would be indirectly and negatively associated with collective action in favor of immigrants, sequentially mediated first through binding moral foundations and then political conservatism. We found support for this prediction when either dispositional measure (Study 1 and Study 2) or an experimental induction (Study 3) of need for closure were used, and when both collective action intentions (Study 1 and Study 3) and behavior (Study 2) were assessed. The results suggest that need for closure constitutes a powerful motivational force that leads individuals to engage in uncertainty‐reducing evaluations and actions. We discuss these results regarding how they are related with previous work and their implications for research and practice.

Connections: The Use Social Associations With Migratory Background Make of ICT to Build Social Capital for Newcomers’ Social Integration

“…Literature in the field attests that bonding networks are resourceful means to get settled within the resettlement communities as they provide for housing, job opportunities but also with emotional and social support (Beirens et al, 2007; Calhoun, 2010; Eriksson et al, 2018). These results go in the same line and beyond as they testify that the creation of bonding networks, through the use of ICT, is intended by JOIN as a mean to create a collective action, or rather an action undertaken by a group in order to improve a disadvantaged situation (Hovland & Sears, 1940 in De Cristofaro et al, 2019). At the same time, both the web platform and social media will spread positive narratives about refugees that will act as a glue for the creation of bridging networks.…”

Politics Turns Moral Foundations Into Consequences of Intergroup Attitudes

“…However, there has lately been a rapidly growing interest in how moral intuition, an immediate and non-argumentative form of moral judgment based on these two sets of moral foundations (Haidt, 2012) can explain intergroup attitudes and preferences. So far, studies have shown that individualizing foundations are related to more positive attitudes and binding foundations to more negative attitudes toward outgroups like Muslims (Hadarics & Kende, 2018a;Kugler et al, 2014;Van de Vyver et al, 2016), immigrants (Baldner & Pierro, 2019;Hadarics & Kende, 2017;Van de Vyver et al, 2016), sexual outgroups (Barnett et al, 2018;Monroe & Plant, 2019), poor people (Low & Wui, 2016), beggers (Nilsson et al, 2016), or foreigners (Nilsson et al, 2020;Smith et al, 2014). Furthermore, moral foundations were also found to be related to more generalized dimensions of prejudice, like attitudes toward "dangerous," "derogated," and "dissident" groups (Forsberg et al, 2019;Hadarics & Kende, 2018b).…”

Sympathy as knowledge of the other in need: An investigation into the roles of need for closure and the moral foundations on sympathy toward immigrants

“…Gray and colleagues (e.g., Schein & Gray, ) have argued that perceived harm underlies moral violations, even for so‐called “harmless” crimes (e.g., “disrespecting” the flag). Regardless of the underlying factors, the moral foundations have previously been used as a series of attitudes toward different types of norm violations (e.g., Baldner & Pierro, , ; De Cristofaro et al, ).…”