The Role of Perception of Threats, Conservative Beliefs and Prejudice on Prosocial Behavioural Intention in Favour of As
- PDF / 619,486 Bytes
- 10 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 97 Downloads / 164 Views
The Role of Perception of Threats, Conservative Beliefs and Prejudice on Prosocial Behavioural Intention in Favour of Asylum Seekers in a Sample of Italian Adults Tiziana Mancini 1
&
Benedetta Bottura 1 & Luca Caricati 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract Based on the Dual Process Model (DPM), this study investigates the relationship among the perception of in-group threats, conservative ideologies (social dominance orientation, SDO, and right-wing authoritarianism, RWA), prejudice, and prosocial behavioural intentions (PBI) towards asylum seekers. A sample of 200 people living in Italy answered an anonymous questionnaire administered using a cross-sectional design. The results partially supported the DPM’s expectations while also showing, however, some unexpected effects with respect to behavioural intentions to help asylum seekers. As predicted by the DPM, the perception of in-group threats, whether realistic or symbolic, directly and indirectly (via SDO and RWA) affected prejudice against asylum seekers. SDO and RWA did not have a direct effect on behavioural intentions but their effects were totally mediated by prejudice. This is a novel finding and suggests that conservative ideologies can positively affect people’s behaviour but only through a decreased attitudinal disposition towards asylum seekers. The theoretical and practical implications derived from the data are discussed. Keywords Asylum seekers . Prosocial behavioural intention . In-group threat . Prejudice . Ideological beliefs
Introduction In recent years, the number of asylum claimants is significantly on the rise in Europe, thereby demonstrating that the world situation is certainly at a critical juncture and in a worrying state of regress with respect to fundamental human rights. Forced migration worldwide caused by wars, conflicts, and persecution has reached the highest levels recorded thus far and the numbers are rapidly increasing. By the end of 2016, 65.6 million individuals had been forcibly displaced worldwide as a result of persecution, conflict, violence or human rights violations, an increase of 300,000 people over the previous year. There were 2,826,508 asylum seekers, i.e., individuals who sought international protection and whose claims for refugee status have not yet been determined, irrespective of when they were lodged. Due to its central location in the
* Tiziana Mancini [email protected] 1
Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Industries, University of Parma, Borgo Carissimi, 10, 43121 Parma, Italy
Mediterranean Sea, Italy is the third country (after Germany and the USA) for the number of received new asylum claims in 2016 (122,972), with 247,992 people arriving by sea, often with tragic outcomes (UNHCR 2016). A major political and social media debate on the migration emergency has generated stereotyped representations of asylum seekers as bogus, as victims, or as a threat to national borders (for a review see Bottura and Mancini 2016). From 2015, Italian
Data Loading...
