Social dominance orientation and differential affect toward immigrant origin groups: Evidence from three immigration-receiving countries

Abstract

Recent evidence suggests that majority group members in immigration-receiving societies express differential levels of prejudice and stereotyping toward various immigrant origins. However, there is little research on whether this tendency to differentiate between more vs. less liked immigrant groups is informed by essential psychological motivations and systematically related to individual differences. In this paper, I test whether majority group members’ propensity to express greater differences in affect toward immigrant origins is associated with social dominance orientation. Using survey studies carried out in the Netherlands, the United States, and Britain, I demonstrate that majority group members’ tendency to express differential affect toward immigrant origins holds across national contexts. I also show that individual-level inclination to differentiate between more and less liked immigrant groups is consistently related to social dominance orientation in all three countries. Overall, my findings confirm the group-specific character of anti-immigration attitudes and highlight the role of social-dominance motivations in prejudice toward immigrants.