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Immigrants and refugees are today represented as a threat by a significant number of Europeans and constitute a topic that divides Governments and is at the centre of the agenda of new European extreme right-wing. This chapter presents a new approach and innovative hypotheses about the factors underlying the representation of immigrants and refugees as a threat, and their role in legitimizing discrimination, social inequalities and the development of anti-immigrant and anti-refugee public policies. Our approach is based on the hypothesis that immigrants and refugees are perceived as a threat to individual and collective life projects, particularly by those experiencing a sense of social disaffection (i.e., a generalized feeling that conjointly expresses dissatisfaction with life, perception of lack of control over life and distrust of the social system's nuclear institutions). Using new data from the European Social Survey, we propose an analytical model specifying the correlates of threat perceptions and the mediating role of threat on the relationship between social disaffection and opposition to immigration and refugees in Europe. Results have shown that the sense of threat is related to right-wing political positioning, exclusive national identity, anti-universalistic values and, more importantly, with the sense of social disaffection. Significantly, threat perceptions play a legitimating role in the relationship between social disaffection and opposition to immigration and to hosting refugees. We further discuss the theoretical and socio-political implications of our approach to the study of threat in the context of contemporary social dynamics. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Based on ESS-7 data, this paper focuses on two attitudinal dimensions about public policies related to immigration: how many can come and who can come. In this context, the hypothesis concerning the bi-dimensionality of racism was supported and, as predicted, biological racism is more antinormative than cultural racism. Both biological and cultural racism predict opposition to immigration and adhesion to ethnicist criteria on the selection of immigrants. As hypothesised, the relationship between racism and opposition to immigration and adhesion to ethnicist criteria is mediated by threat perceptions. Specifically, symbolic and realistic threats mediate the effect of biological and cultural racism on opposition to immigration and on ethnicist criteria. The hypothesis that the mediation effects are moderated by the country's quality of democracy was supported, indicating that the mediation effects are stronger in countries with a higher quality of democracy. Results are discussed within the context of racism theories as a bi-dimensional concept and in the framework of the role of legitimation processes in social discrimination. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Recent decades have seen some European countries experiencing a new wave of migratory rates that have sustained economic growth and simultaneously contributed to changes in the pattems of customs, life styles, values and religions. Alongside this new European setting, ambivalent positions in the attitude domain have emerged. This occurs because in contemporary democratic societies people are embedded within cultural environments that disseminate a social discourse stressing that good people are egalitarian and non-discriminatory.

Abstract In this study we investigated the relationship between the anti-prejudice norm and the expression of attitudes towards minority groups. Participated 100 people who evaluated a list with 16 target groups of prejudice, answering two questions: indicate the groups that feel less prejudice; and which ones do you prefer. The results showed that there are different levels of prejudice depending on the target-group, with the women, blacks and people with disabilities being the most protected by the norm. A hierarchical analysis of clusters evidenced an organization of the groups, classified as naturalised, blamed, sexual and political minorities. The anti-prejudice norm and the attitudes presented a strong and positive relation (r = 0.65, p < 0.001). A multilevel logistic regression analysis showed that this relation was moderated by the type of group. These results contribute to the studies on the expression of prejudice, besides demonstrating the role of norms in the understanding of the phenomenon.

Vaccines are essential for the eradication of diseases. Yet for many reasons, individuals do not embrace them completely. In the COVID‐19 pandemic and with the possibility of the Brazilian population's immunization against the disease, both political and health‐related dimensions might have had a role in individual COVID‐19 vaccination acceptance. In two studies (n = 974), we tested the hypothesis that participants' vaccination acceptance is related to their past vote in the 2018 Brazilian presidential election (being or not being a Jair Bolsonaro voter) and their different levels of perceived vulnerability to disease (PVD). We further tested whether Bolsonaro's opposition or ambiguous messages towards vaccination (vs. control) increased vaccination rejection among those who have (vs. have not) voted for him and who are low (vs. high) in PVD. Results show that Bolsonaro (vs. non‐Bolsonaro) voters accepted less vaccination, with higher rejection rates when participants expressed low (vs. high) PVD. Also, when primed either with Bolsonaro's opposed or ambiguous messages towards COVID‐19 vaccination, such participants accepted less vaccines (vs. participants primed with neutral information). These findings are the first to show that the COVID‐19 vaccine acceptance is related to their past vote and leadership influence but also different levels of perceived vulnerability to disease.

There is evidence that democracies are under threat around the world while the quest for strong leaders is increasing. Although the causes of these developments are complex and multifaceted, here we focus on one factor: the extent to which citizens express materialist and post-materialist concerns. We explore whether objective higher levels of democracy are differentially associated with materialist and post-materialist concerns and, in turn, whether this is related to the wish for a strong leader. Testing this hypothesis across 27 countries (N = 5,741) demonstrated a direct negative effect of democracies' development on the wish for a strong leader. Further, multi-level mediation analysis showed that the relation between the Democracy Index and the wish for a strong leader was mediated by materialist concerns. This pattern of results suggests that lower levels of democracy are associated with enhanced concerns about basic needs and this is linked to greater support for strong leaders. ; reviewed ; acceptedVersion