Abstract
AbstractSocial psychology highlights ingroup identity as an important determinant of intergroup attitudes and relations; however, research has demonstrated that its effects can be positive, negative, or nonexistent depending on how such identity is conceptualized. This research explores how national identity inclusiveness (Study 1) and centrality (Study 2) are associated with immigration related attitudes in school and countrywide settings, respectively. Study 1 showed that teachers’ inclusive (i.e., overlapping) identities regarding their immigrant students related to positive attitudes toward these students, but not to attitudes about immigrants in general or immigration policy preferences. Study 2 found that national identity centrality was related to negative attitudes toward the social impact of immigrants, and to higher support for policies inhibiting the social inclusion of immigrants in the receiving community. Combined, these studies highlight the importance of considering different conceptualizations of ingroup identity in identifying relations to immigration‐based attitudes. Moreover, the studies highlight the value of promoting inclusive identities when aiming to improve attitudes toward immigrants. We conclude by discussing a new approach for promoting inclusive identities by framing immigrants as indispensable to the receiving community.
Highlights
We are currently experiencing extraordinary human mobility, with 244 million international and 750 million domestic migrants living in the world today
The results indicated that teachers‘ self-construal included national, crossnational dimensions, and immigrant students: Teachers‘ perceived overlap between their selfratings and ratings of North African students was highly correlated with perceived overlap between teachers‘ self-ratings and ratings of European students
We detected some dissociation in the psychological correlates of identities inclusive of immigrants: These looked consequential for simpler warmth responses to the immigrant target directly involved in the inclusive representation, but inconsequential at least in this study for more complex and behaviorally imbued responses towards immigrants—such as stereotypical views, social distance, and preferences for immigration policies
Summary
The first and simplest index, tapped liking and warmth towards immigrant students; it was computed as the average of the ratings for the North African students attitude object on the semantic differential scale This index could vary between 1 and 7 with high values indicating more liking/warmth. The second was a 6-item immigration policies subscale measuring respondents‘ broader attitudes towards immigration to Italy and exclusionary policies targeting immigrants (e.g., ―I think Italy should close the doors to immigration‖ and ―I think that North African immigrants who do not have a regular employment contract should be repatriated‖) Respondents indicated their level of agreement to these items on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). 50), yet uncorrelated to the index of attitudes towards African students (rs < -.14), suggesting some discontinuity of responses across the three outcome indicators
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