Conflicting identities: cosmopolitan or anxious? Appreciating concerns of host country population improves attitudes towards immigrants

Tobias Heidland and Philipp C Wichardt

Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy from Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel)

Abstract: This paper connects insights from the literature on cosmopolitan worldviews and the effects of perspective-taking in political science, (intergroup) anxiety in social psychology, and identity economics in a vignette-style experiment. In particular, we asked German respondents about their attitudes towards a Syrian refugee, randomizing components of his description (N = 662). The main treatment describes the refugee as being aware of and empathetic towards potential worries in the German population about cultural change, costs, and violence associated with refugee inflows. This perspective-taking by the refugee increases the reported ability to empathize with the refugee and, especially for risk-averse people, reported sympathy and trust. We argue that acknowledging the potential concerns of the host population relieves the tension between an anxious and a cosmopolitan/open part of people’s identities. Moreover, relieved tension renders people less defensive; i.e. when one aspect of identity is already acknowledged (expressing anxieties), it has less influence on actual behavior (expressing sympathy). In addition, previous contact with foreigners and a higher willingness to take risks are important factors in determining an individual’s willingness to interact with refugees.

Keywords: intergroup contact; intergroup anxiety; perspective-taking; identity; migration; inte-gration; refugees (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp, nep-soc and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/301392/1/C ... litan-or-anxious.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Conflicting Identities: Cosmopolitan or Anxious? Appreciating Concerns of Host Country Population Improves Attitudes Towards Immigrants (2019)
Working Paper: Conflicting identities: Cosmopolitan or anxious? Appreciating concerns of host country population improves attitudes towards immigrants (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:ifwkie:301392

DOI: 10.1093/sf/soae108

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy from Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().