The role of European and national identity and threat perceptions and in attitudes towards immigrants

Identification with a superordinate entity, like Europe, reduces prejudice towards immigrants in general, but no research so far investigated if this differs between prejudice towards immigrants from inside and outside Europe. Using online survey data from four European countries, we determined whether national and European identification are (differently) related to attitudes towards immigrants from inside and outside Europe, and to which extent these relations can be explained by differences in refugee threat perceptions. We found that those who strongly identify with Europe hold more favorable views towards both European and non-European immigrants, while the reverse effect is found for strong national identifiers - an effect that can be explained by realistic and symbolic refugee threat perceptions. We did not find evidence for our expectation that the strength of the associations of national identification on attitudes and threat perceptions would depend on the level of European identification of participants. Overall, our findings provide mixed support for the Common In-group Identity Model because European identifiers, although more positive towards immigrants, did not make strong distinctions between European and non-European immigrants.

Automated summary

Identification with Europe reduces prejudice towards immigrants, regardless of whether they are from inside or outside Europe. However, strong national identification leads to more negative attitudes towards immigrants, which can be explained by threat perceptions. European identifiers do not make strong distinctions between European and non-European immigrants. These findings provide mixed support for the Common In-group Identity Model.