Attitudes toward Indigenous Australians and asylum seekers: The role of false beliefs and other social-psychological variables

Abstract

Australia has a long and chequered history regarding relations between different cultural groups. Indigenous, Asian, Yugoslav, Italian and Arabic Australians have all suffered from negativity directed toward them by “mainstream” Australia. At the beginning of the 21st century there has been much publicity about two groups: Indigenous Australians and asylum seekers. In this paper, we examine community attitudes toward these two groups, in particular the role of false beliefs in such attitudes. We then set out both the similarities and differences in these two highly related sets of attitudes, and conclude that Australia would appear not to be as accepting of a multi-cultural society as we sometimes believe, and on which we often pride ourselves. There are many social-psychological and structural issues related to negative attitudes toward Indigenous Australians and asylum seekers; much work needs to be carried out to address these.