In-group Identification and Prejudice against Syrians in Turkey: The Roles of Perceived Threat and Contact Quality

The purpose of the present study is to examine the role of in-group identification on Turkish people’s prejudice against Syrians in Turkey. Previous research has shown that strong identification with an in-group is associated with higher prejudice against migrants (e.g., Pehrson, Vignoles, & Brown, 2009; Verkuyten, 2005). However, few studies have attempted to examine the relationship between different types of in-group identification and prejudice. The present study incorporated ethnic, national, and linguistic identification in order to study their effects on prejudice by taking threat perceptions and contact quality into account. A community sample of 305 Turkish participants (148 men, 155 women; M_age = 36.15, SD_age = 15.64) constituted the sample. The results of serial multiple mediation analyses indicated that all types of in-group identification predicted affective and behavioral prejudice through the effect of realistic threat on symbolic threat. Ethnic identification predicted prejudice also directly through symbolic threat. The results of simple moderation analyses showed that the relationship between national and linguistic identification and affective and behavioral prejudice was moderated by the quality of contact with Syrians. The moderator role of contact quality for ethnic identification was observed only for behavioral prejudice. These results extend the previous research and point to the unique aspect of ethnic identity in the Turkish-Syrian context.

References

Pehrson, S., Vignoles, V. L., & Brown, R. (2009). National identification and anti-immigrant prejudice: Individual and contextual effects of national definitions. Social Psychology Quarterly, 72(1), 24-38.

Verkuyten, M. (2005). Ethnic group identification and group evaluation among minority and majority groups: Testing the multiculturalism hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88(1), 121-138.