Abstract
<p>Autochthon Europeans reacted inconsistently to rising numbers of asylum applications in 2015 and 2016. While some of them welcomed asylum seekers enthusiastically, others reacted with hostility. The objective of this study was to test a predictive model of these individual differences by Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Both, in a German-speaking (N = 349 Austrians and Germans) and in a Slovak (N = 307) adult sample, the perception of "cultural threat" was a strong predictor of attitudes towards asylum seekers, whereas perceived "economic threat" and "modern racism" did not explain additional proportions of the variance.</p>
Highlights
1.1 Rising numbers of asylum applications in the European Union Rising numbers of asylum seekers and refugees continue to be reported since the beginning of the millennium (Ramantani, Karasavvoglou, Polychronidou, Florou, & Batziou, 2015)
Conclusion and policy implications The present study intended to take a first step towards filling the research gap which resulted from recent demographic changes in the European Union as a consequence of forced migration from the Middle East
We have found that perceived cultural threat is the most powerful predictor of individual differences in the autochthon population's attitudes towards forced migration
Summary
1.1 Rising numbers of asylum applications in the European Union Rising numbers of asylum seekers and refugees continue to be reported since the beginning of the millennium (Ramantani, Karasavvoglou, Polychronidou, Florou, & Batziou, 2015). According to the European Asylum Support Office (2016) in 2015 a total of 1,349,638 asylum applications were received by the member states of the European Union, Norway and Switzerland. In Germany, during the year of 2015, a total number of 476,649 asylum applications, as compared to 202,834 applications in 2014 were filed. During the first six months of 2016, this number amounted to 396,947 applications, indicating a trend still increasing (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, 2016). As a consequence of the country's geographical position, this trend initially was more pronounced in Austria, where an increase from 28,064 asylum applications during 2014 to 88,151 in 2015 was reported
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