A Distant Threat Made Local? The Carry-over Effect of Perceived Threat from Asylum Seekers in Europe to Israeli Local Outgroups

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of perceived threat from asylum seekers in EU (EUAS) on attitudes toward Israeli local outgroups, controlling for face to-face interaction with the latter. The study was conducted using an online survey of 1311 Israeli Jews. Realistic threat from EUAS was negatively related to positive attitudes toward three local outgroups, while the association between symbolic threat from EUAS and attitudes toward the local outgroups was insignificant. The effect of distant realistic threat was more pronounced than the effect of symbolic threat and the effect of face-to-face contact. Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15562948.2021.1956668 .