The good,the bad and the advantageous: Migrants’ attitudes towards other migrants

There is a growing number of various ethnic groups in Finland. The attitudes and categorizations that host country nationals have and make regarding migrants is frequently researched. The attitudes that migrants have towards other migrants has, however, been much less researched. This paper provides an in-depth analysis that considers what factors are behind the attitudes that migrants form of other migrants and how these impact categorizations and hierarchies. The empirical research material of this study is based on 77 qualitative interviews with migrants living in Finland, carried out in 2018–2019. In the analysis, various theories of minority relations are applied.The research finds that migrants evaluate other migrants according to their perceived advantageousness and, based on these evaluations, they form hierarchies, which are to some extent ethnic. Perceived advantageousness is based on being integrated (especially in economic terms), hard-working, non-threatening, pliable, similar to Finns (or an ideal of perceived Finnishness), “white”, and not being dependent on welfare benefits. As a fear of being lumped together and then discriminated against, migrants emphasise their distinctiveness from other migrant groups in a subjugating manner. Certain characteristics tend to be ascribed to certain backgrounds and ethnicities and, thus, migrant groups become categorized according to their positions in a hierarchy. Not being advantageous is attributed to personal shortcomings and even ‘racial’ attributes. A shared commonness of the majority population is presumed and functions as the underlying assumption which guides the idea of how and what people should be like in order to fit in.     

In-group and out-group attitudes of ethnic majority and minority children

Research indicates that ethnic majority group children show a consistent preference for their ethnic in-group, whereas the ethnic preferences of minority groups are less conclusive. The present study assessed the ethnic attitudes of 5–12-year-old children from an ethnic majority group (59 Anglo-Australian) and a minority group (60 Pacific Islander). Participants rated members of Anglo-Australian, Pacific Islander, and Aboriginal (indigenous Australian) groups. Results revealed that the majority group participants rated the in-group more positively than the two out-groups, with the indigenous out-group being rated less positively. In contrast, the ethnic minority participants rated the in-group and the ethnic majority out-group equally positively, while the Aboriginal out-group was also rated least positively. A preference for in-group neighbours was also displayed by both the ethnic majority and ethnic minority participants, with the Aboriginal out-group again being least preferred as neighbours. The results also revealed that these effects varied with age for the ethnic majority, but not the ethnic minority group participants. The results are discussed in relation to findings on children's ethnic attitudes and intercultural relations.     

Cultural homelessness, multiminority status, ethnic identity development, and self esteem

This study presents a measure of “cultural homelessness” (Vivero & Jenkins, 1999), a construct developed to explain the experiences of some individuals having early-life immersion in more than one culture. Culturally homeless individuals report pervasive experiences of “being different”: mixed racial, ethnic, and/or cultural heritages within their families of origin and/or between their families and the surrounding sociocultural context, resulting in structural marginality; repeated subjection to contradictory cultural demands; and the acquisition of conflicting frames of reference for their behavior. Ambiguous physical presentation and the complexity of codeswitching across multiple cultural frames of reference at a young age may lead to confused or inappropriate social behavior, resulting in rejection and discrimination by both minority and majority groups, chronic feelings of “not belonging,” self-blame and shame, social and emotional isolation, cultural identity confusion, and the desire to find a “cultural home.” Empirical findings operationalizing this construct show associations of cultural homelessness criteria with gender; risk factors related to multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural status; ethnic identity; and self esteem.     

Cross-ethnic friendships: Are they really rare? Evidence from secondary schools around London

This study examined current cross-ethnic friendship patterns in secondary schools around London, UK, and the effects of ethnic group and ethnic diversity on cross-ethnic friendship selection and quality. Questionnaires including self-report ethnic group definitions and measures of same-/cross-ethnic friendship numbers, along with the quality of 3 best cross-ethnic friends, were distributed to 684 Year 7 (aged 11) British students (256 White European, 63 Middle Easterner, 118 Black, 247 South Asian) recruited from 9 multi-ethnic secondary schools (37 classrooms) in Greater London. In contrast to most previous research which suggested the relative rarity of cross-ethnic friendships, findings showed that cross-ethnic friendships were in fact frequent and of high quality, outnumbering same-ethnic friendships for all ethnic groups. After controlling for gender, classroom gender composition, SES, percentage of available same-ethnic peers, ethnic identity and perceived ethnic discrimination, classroom ethnic diversity still had a marginally positive effect on cross-ethnic friendship selection, but had no effect on cross-ethnic friendship quality. White British children reported higher cross-ethnic friendship selection and lower cross-ethnic friendship quality compared to other ethnic groups, but this depended on classroom ethnic diversity. Implications of the findings are discussed in the light of intergroup contact and friendship formation theories. We conclude that research on cross-ethnic friendships is crucial in providing insights into how intergroup relationships are formed during early adolescence in modern multiethnic settings like London secondary schools.     

Soft power: From ethnic attraction to national attraction in sociological globalism

This paper explores the influence of ethnic relations in sociological globalism on the formulation process of a country’s soft power (i.e., national attraction). People migrate into a country, become an ethnic group, and experience sociological contact/interaction with other ethnic groups, through which they form more concrete and experiential attitudes toward each other. In turn, these attitudes affect their perceptions of other ethnic groups’ homeland countries. With soft power being defined as favorability toward a foreign country, this paper investigates the influence of ethnic relations in a three-predictor regression model of soft power—ethnic relations, between country relationship quality, and normative performance (i.e., reputation) of a country. In testing the model, this study uses secondary data consisting of U.S. national surveys including polls of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations on perceptions of foreign countries and aggregate nation-level data. The findings show that ethnic relations has a sizable, significant influence on favorability, second to relationship quality, with normative performance having a weak, insignificant influence. This paper further discusses the findings’ implications for contemporary public diplomacy practice and theory and outlines directions for future study of ethnic relation’s influence on soft power in sociological globalism.     

When do people accept cultural diversity?: Affect as determinant

Two experiments examined the influence of affect on the acceptance of cultural diversity. In Experiment 1, the salience of affective reactions towards Turkish immigrants was manipulated by asking German participants to think about their negative feelings towards Turks in general or towards a subgroup of Turks. It was found that the salience of negative affective reactions led to a decreased acceptance when affective reactions were generalized to the whole group, but not when they were attributed to a subgroup. Experiment 2 investigated the moderating role of perceived homogeneity with regards to the impact of affective reactions attributed to a subgroup of Muslim immigrants in Germany. As predicted, the salience of a negative aspect of a subgroup strengthened self-reported and implicitly measured negative attitudes when the perceived homogeneity of the immigrant group was high, but not when it was low.     

Friendships and outgroup attitudes among ethnic minority youth: The mediating role of ethnic and host society identification

This study investigates among ethnic minority adolescents how friendships with ethnic minority and majority group peers are related to their attitudes towards the majority outgroup.Friendships with majority group peers are proposed to be indirectly related to outgroup attitudes through host society identification. Friendships with ethnic ingroup peers are proposed to be indirectly related to outgroup attitudes through ethnic ingroup identification.Hypotheses were tested longitudinally among ethnic minority adolescents (n = 244) who recently entered middle schools in the Netherlands. Lagged structural equation models showed that friendships with majority group peers were related to stronger identification with the host society which was in turn related to improved attitudes toward the majority outgroup. Ingroup friendships and ingroup identification was not related to outgroup attitudes. Additional analyses indicated that the relation between host society identification and majority group friendships was bidirectional.     

What is the better predictor of students’ personal values: Parents’ values or students’ personality?

This study examines the relationship between young adults’ values, multicultural personality traits and their parents’ values. A total of 102 students and their matched parents filled in the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire and the Portrait Value Questionnaire. The influence of one's personality and one's parents’ values on personal values was tested by hierarchical regression analyses and structural equation modelling. The analyses revealed a greater contribution of multicultural personality to the variance in stimulation, self-direction, universalism, and achievement values in comparison to the impact of parents’ values, whereas an opposite pattern was found for power, benevolence, and conformity. Tradition, hedonism, and security were found to be linked to multicultural personality and parents’ values to a similar extent. Furthermore, overall trait-like parents’ values were better predictors of the offspring's trait-like values, and the same effect held for parental societal values: they predicted better the offspring's societal values. The authors discuss the need for differentiation between trait-like and societally oriented values and the application of content-tailored personality measures, in line with previous studies.     

National identity in a divided nation: South Koreans’ attitudes toward North Korean defectors and the reunification of two Koreas

This paper examines how national identity is associated with South Koreans’ attitudes toward North Korean defectors and their opinions on the relationship between two Koreas. Using a nationally representative survey, we find that individuals high on ethnic identity are more likely to harbor negative attitudes toward migrants from North Korea and less likely to believe that the reunification between two Koreas is necessary. The findings suggest that alleged common belief in “one nation, two countries” notwithstanding, political division has led South Koreans to regard North Korean citizens as an out-group, who are not clearly distinguishable from non-coethnic immigrants.     

Together we stand? Belonging motive moderates the effect of national ingroup salience on attitudes towards ethnic minorities

Common ingroup categorization reduces outgroup prejudice. This link is moderated by distinctiveness motives (i.e., individuals perceiving this identity as too inclusive). Yet, Optimal Distinctiveness Theory states that both distinctiveness and belonging motives shape intergroup attitudes. For the first time we tested the hypothesis that belonging and distinctiveness motives jointly moderate common ingroup categorization effects. Using a flag-priming paradigm, two studies showed that, when national ingroup identity was salient, only belonging motives predicted positive attitudes towards outgroups (Study1: Syrians in Turkey, N = 184; Study 2: Maghrebis in France N = 151). This was corroborated by sensitivity analyses on aggregated data (N = 335). These results suggest that national identification may lead to positive outgroup attitudes for individuals who derive belonging from it.