How Ideological Attitudes Predict Host Society Members’ Attitudes toward Immigrants: Exploring Cross-National Differences

Abstract

Recent theoretical frameworks assume that the ideological attitudes of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) predict individuals’ attitudes toward immigrant groups, and that these predictive relations are affected by contextual factors. Based on these assumptions, we conducted a meta-analysis of the relations between ideological attitudes and anti-immigrant attitudes in 155 samples from 17 countries (totalN= 38,522 participants). As potential correlates of cross-national differences in these relations, socioeconomic indices, cultural worldviews, and collective perceptions of immigrants were considered. RWA was a particularly strong predictor of anti-immigrant attitudes in countries where immigrants were perceived as increasing the crime rate and as not being beneficial to the economy (e.g., Germany, Italy); and SDO was a particularly strong predictor in countries with a higher relative unemployment rate of immigrants (e.g., Belgium, Sweden). We discuss the interplay of individual and sociocultural factors and offer directions for future research.