The effect of perceived cultural and material threats on ethnic preferences in immigration attitudes

Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom, Gizem Arikan, Gallya Lahav

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

86 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper shows that cultural and material threats exist side by side, serving different psychological functions, and that they manifest in differential attitudes towards immigrants from different ethnic or racial origins. While culturally threatened individuals prefer immigrants akin to themselves, as opposed to those from different races and cultures, the materially threatened prefer immigrants who are different from themselves who can be expected not to compete for the same resources. We test our hypotheses using multilevel structural equation modelling, based on data from twenty countries in the 2002 wave of the European Social Survey. The disaggregation of these two types of perceived threat reveals responsiveness to the race of immigrants that is otherwise masked by pooling the two threat dimensions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1760-1778
Number of pages19
JournalEthnic and Racial Studies
Volume38
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - 9 Aug 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Taylor & Francis.

Keywords

  • comparative politics
  • ethnic preferences
  • immigration
  • multilevel structural equation modelling
  • perceived threat
  • responsiveness to group cues

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