The interest of social scientists about the determinants of anti-immigration attitudes is regularly growing. Nowadays, the management of immigration phenomenon is a challenge at political, economic, and social level. Understanding the social psychological antecedents behind the onset of negative attitudes towards people seeking refuge, or who decide to live in a country other than their origin country, can help to overcome this challenge. To that end, the present study aims at investigating whether the experience of being socially excluded causes a reduction in generalized interpersonal trust which, in turn, leads to the rise of hostile attitudes towards immigrants and immigration. Specifically, we hypothesized that: 1) to an increase in social exclusion corresponds a decrease in trust towards other people; 2) social exclusion exerts a positive direct effect on the emergence of anti-immigration attitudes; 3) social exclusion exerts a positive indirect effect on anti-immigration attitudes, through generalized interpersonal trust.
The predicted relationships will be examined by means of three studies in which the construct of social exclusion will be both manipulated and detected with self-report measures. The first two studies will aim to test the causal influence of social exclusion on interpersonal trust and the consequent increase in negative attitudes towards immigration. Social exclusion will be manipulated according to two widespread experimental paradigms of the Cyber Ball and Life Alone Prognosis. In the third study, the hypotheses will be tested through a 1-1-1 multilevel mediation model, on a representative sample of the European population. The purpose of the research project is to provide a new possible explanation about the emergence of negative and prejudicial attitudes among people belonging to different ethnic groups and sheds light on aspects which, if well managed, might favor the development of a widespread climate of integration and acceptance.
The present project aims to verify if the experience of social exclusion might cause a generalized reduction of trust towards other people which, in turn, would lead to hostile attitudes towards immigrants and immigration. Despite the multiplicity of studies on the possible causes of the emergence of anti-immigration attitudes, none analyzed the possible role that social exclusion and generalized interpersonal trust might play. Furthermore, none has examined how both could jointly determine the increase in negative sentiment towards people fleeing war and persecution, as well as those who decide to live in a country other than their origin country.
The project aims to demonstrate that social exclusion, mediated by interpersonal trust, has a positive and significant impact on anti-immigration attitudes. This result would corroborate and disambiguate the results of previous research on social exclusion and its consequences (e.g., Baumeister et al., 2005; Twenge et al., 2007; Williams & Sommer, 1997; Maner et al., 2007). It is expected that the negative experience of exclusion, due to the impossibility of participating in collective activities, meeting with friends and colleagues and the possibility of intimately discussing our problems, leads to being reluctant to expose oneself to the risk of being excluded again. This process could have a double consequence. Consistent with the results of previous research (for example, Gest et al., 2001, Twenge et al., 2001; Baumeister et al., 2005; Twenge et al., 2007), it might be found that social exclusion exerts a direct positive effect on the emergence of anti-immigration attitudes. This result would be in line with what emerged, for example, on aggressive behavior (Twenge et al., 2001), or impulsive and uncontrolled acts (Baumeister et al., 2005), as consequences of social exclusion. However, these studies have focused mainly on the direct relationship between social exclusion and some negative outcomes. Other studies (Twenge et al., 2007) have tried to investigate whether the effects of social exclusion on prosocial behavior could be mediated by trust, but without finding support. They found only a significant relationship between exclusion and trust and between exclusion and pro-social behavior, but not the mediational path that which is assumed to be found in the present project.
In our case, considering the path pertinent to the relationship between social exclusion and trust, the results would show that interpersonal trust depends on the direct experiences of social interaction that people make during their life. That is, they would indicate that with an increase in social exclusion the generalized trust towards others decreases. Consistent with what emerged in the studies of Twenge and colleagues (2007), it is expected to find support for the idea that socially excluded people are motivated by the attempt to protect themselves from the possibility of being rejected again and excluded. At the same time, it is also expected that the effect exerted by the exclusion on a given outcome may also be mediated by the generalized trust towards other people. In other words, the doubt and the suspicion that individuals feel about new possible social interactions (low trust), due to the negative episodes of interaction experienced previously (social exclusion), would lead individuals to negatively evaluate unknown people, who come from a different culture, which have values and standards perceived as distant from their own (anti-immigration attitudes).
Furthermore, although this possibility will not be directly addressed by this project, our results would also highlight the probable individual tendency to extend feelings of trust from a specific level to a more abstract level. Expected results would shed light on the possible role that social exclusion can play in the tendency to transform feelings of trust towards close persons in a widespread vision of humanity in general.
Overall, the present project aims to offer a possible explanation of the functioning of individual processes that may favor the emergence of negative prejudicial attitudes among people belonging to different ethnic groups. This explanation would provide a new possible point of view on an extremely current phenomenon in Italy and in Europe, such as immigration. The expected results would allow us to highlight the importance of some aspects that, if well managed, could contribute to the development of a widespread climate of integration and acceptance.