While most of the world's refugees reside in developing countries, their arrival to western countries is highly politicised, giving rise to questions about the types of entitlements and rights that should, or should not, be granted. In this study, using a mixed-methods community questionnaire (N = 185), we examined attitudes towards social policies aimed at providing assistance to two categories of new arrivals to Australia: resettled refugees (who arrive via its official refugee resettlement program) and asylum seekers (who arrive via boat and then seek refugee status). Social policy attitude was examined as a consequence of feelings of anger, fear, and threat, as well as levels of prejudice. Participants felt significantly higher levels of anger, fear, threat, and prejudice towards asylum seekers compared to resettled refugees. For both resettled refugees and asylum seekers, prejudice was an independent predictor of more restrictive social policy attitudes. For resettled refugees, fear and perceived threat were independent predictors for more restrictive social policy whereas for asylum seekers anger was an independent predictor of restrictive social policy. The qualitative data reinforced the quantitative findings and extended understanding on the appraisals that underpin negative attitudes and emotional responses. Practical implications relating to challenging community attitudes are discussed.
Most of the world's refugees currently reside in developing countries (
In this study, we examine Australian community members’ support for social policies aimed at providing assistance to resettled refugees (who are flown from overseas to Australia via its official refugee resettlement program) and asylum seekers (who arrive in Australia by boat and then seek refugee status). While there are also asylum seekers who arrive on a valid visa, such as a tourist or student visa, and then seek refugee status, only those who arrive by boat are explored here, as they are the group who have faced the most punitive treatment by successive Australian governments. We turn briefly to an overview of the socio-political context in which the study was conducted.
Australia has a Refugee and Humanitarian Program (RHP) which consists of an onshore and offshore component. As a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees as amended by the 1967 Protocol (Refugee Convention), the onshore component attends to people who have entered Australia and lodged a refugee protection claim (
The second component of the RHP is the offshore component which offers resettlement visas to refugees outside of Australia. This may include refugees who have been recognised by a UNHCR camp or by an Australian embassy. Refugees who arrive in Australia in this manner are often referred to as “resettled refugees”. Although the Refugee Convention does not oblige Australia to accept offshore refugees, Australia sets an annual quota for the numbers of visas granted in its offshore component of the RHP (
In this context, resettled refugees and asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat are often represented in political discourse in binary terms such as “genuine refugees” and “legal” (resettled refugees) versus “non-genuine refugees” and “illegal” (asylum seekers) (
Social policies that restrict the rights and supports offered to asylum seekers who arrive by boat over the past 20 or so years also reinforce these oppositional constructions. For example, as noted previously, asylum seekers who arrive in Australia without a valid visa are subject to mandatory detention. In November 2010, some asylum seekers have been released from detention into the community while waiting for the outcome of their refugee claims but are given limited welfare support (
There are a number of social psychological factors that may be useful in predicting social policy attitude for resettled refugees and asylum seekers, such as prejudice and emotions. While these factors have been explored relating to asylum seekers in various ways (for a review see
Although prejudice may offer some insights to this issue, value also lies in considering how emotions towards different groups can help to predict behaviors (
Fear and perceptions of threat have been suggested to play an important role in shaping attitudes towards outgroups in general, and immigrants in particular, including policy attitudes relating to these groups. Fear towards an outgroup, for example, has been conceptualised as fostering self-protective behaviour which in turn promotes preferences for harsher and protective policy initiatives (
Previous research has also found a relationship between the perception of threat and the emotion of fear (
Anger has also been linked with attitudes towards outgroups and policy attitudes in particular. Traditionally, research has explored the role of anger in predicting intergroup behaviour and actions when focusing on disadvantaged group members’ anger towards an advantaged group (e.g.,
Using a mixed methods approach, community attitudes towards social policies regarding resettled refugees and asylum seekers were quantitatively examined in relation to feelings of anger, fear, and perceived threat, as well as levels of prejudice. Following
The research involved three primary aims. The first was to compare participants’ support for social policies relating to resettled refugees and asylum seekers and the levels of prejudice, threat, fear and anger towards the two groups. In view of the evidence that suggests resettled refugees and asylum seekers who arrive by boat are often constructed in oppositional ways by the media, politicians, and the general public, our first hypothesis is that levels of threat, anger, fear and prejudice will be significantly higher for asylum seekers than for resettled refugees, and participants will favour more restrictive policy for asylum seekers than for resettled refugees.
The second aim was to examine predictors of restrictive social policy attitude. As discussed, researchers have moved beyond general prejudice to examine the specific emotions that people experience towards other groups (
Our final aim involved an analysis of the qualitative data. Given previous research that suggests that there is a degree of negativity among the general population to immigration generally but high degrees of negativity towards asylum seekers specifically (
A total of 185 adults from the Perth community in Western Australia participated in our study using a convenience sample with six people acting as research assistants (see acknowledgements). The mean age of the sample was 38 years with a range from 18 to 80 years, and there were more male (54%) than female (46%) participants. Overall, the participants were well educated, with 38% holding or currently completing bachelor’s degrees, while a further 9% had achieved or were completing higher university degrees. Compared with the population figure provided by the
Information concerning the participants’ gender, age in years, education level (1 = did not complete secondary school to 6 = higher degree) and their political orientation (1 = strongly left through to 5 = strongly right, or 6 = don’t care) was collected. Those who did not care about politics were coded as “missing data”. We also asked participants for their religion and ethnicity.
Two attitude thermometers were used to measure prejudice towards resettled refugees and asylum seekers. The prefacing question read, “In general how positive or favourable do you feel about resettled refugees/asylum seekers?”. Participants could respond from 0º (extremely unfavourable) to 100º (extremely favourable). These were reversed in order for them to measure negativity or prejudice rather than positivity.
Participants were then asked to use a check list (following
There were 10 items measuring perceptions of threat regarding resettled refugees and asylum seekers. Four sub-scales of two items each were adapted from
Social policy attitude was measured by participants rating their level of support on a 1–7 Likert scale for four statements amended from
Participants were drawn from the Perth metropolitan area in July-August 2013 through convenience sampling through a team of research assistants. Participants were recruited in large group settings; for example, at social barbeques. Participants were told in the cover letter that “
We investigated whether there were differences between the dependent variable (social policy) and the four predictor variables with respect to resettled refugees and asylum seekers. First, it was noted that there was high correlations between the five threat sub-scales (
Scale | Resettled refugee |
Asylum seeker |
No of items | Score range | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
α | α | |||||||||||
Policy | 3.02 | 1.71 | .79 | 3.88 | 1.94 | .81 | -7.31 | 184 | < .001 | 0.472 | 3 | 1-7 |
Prejudice | 37.46 | 24.17 | - | 64.67 | 28.00 | - | -12.27 | 137 | < .001 | 1.040 | 1 | 1-100 |
Threat | 3.18 | 1.49 | .93 | 3.81 | 1.66 | .94 | -7.47 | 181 | < .001 | 0.400 | 10 | 1-7 |
Anger | 0.69 | 1.20 | .96 | 1.29 | 1.53 | .95 | -7.73 | 182 | < .001 | 0.432 | 6 | 0-6 |
Fear | 0.62 | 1.07 | .96 | 0.78 | 1.19 | .97 | -3.10 | 182 | .002 | 1.430 | 6 | 0-6 |
To investigate the first aim, five t-tests were conducted for each target group. As detailed in
We then conducted a correlation analysis of all the scales, political orientation and the socio-demographics (see
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Policy Scale | — | .50** | .63** | .61** | .58** | .19* | .04 | .24** | -.22** |
2. Prejudice | .53** | — | .43** | .41** | .22** | .14 | -.13 | .18 | -.25** |
3. Threat | .58** | .70** | — | .70** | .64** | .20** | .10 | .30** | -.28** |
4. Anger | .55** | .56** | .68** | — | .82** | .14 | .04 | .18* | -.27** |
5. Fear | .37** | .30** | .48** | .71** | — | .19* | .17* | .19* | -.27** |
6. Age | .20** | .25** | .28** | .26** | .29** | — | .03 | .22** | -.21** |
7. Sex | -.02 | -.01 | .06 | .03 | .17* | .03 | — | -.04 | -.04 |
8. Politics | .40** | .35** | .31** | .29** | .19* | .22** | -.04 | — | -.04 |
9. Education | -.11 | -.22** | -.26* | -.23** | -.21** | -.21** | -.04 | -.04 | — |
*
We examined what variables predicted social policy attitudes with respect resettled refugees and asylum seekers. To examine the additional predictive power of emotions for policy attitude, over and above prejudice, two hierarchical multiple regressions were performed, one for resettled refugees and one for asylum seekers. Political position and significant socio-demographics were entered on the first step, prejudice and threat were entered on the second step, and anger and fear were entered on the third step (see
Variables entered | β |
Total |
||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Step 1 | Step 2 | Step 3 | ||||
Social policy attitude: Resettled refugees | ||||||
Step 1 | .04 | .04 | ||||
Age | .19* | .03 | -.01 | .01 | ||
Political Position | .24** | .14 | -.02 | -.21 | ||
Education | -.22** | -.10 | .03 | .09 | ||
Step 2 | .34* | .38** | ||||
Prejudice | .50** | .28** | .26** | |||
Threat | .63** | .44** | .23* | |||
Step 3 | .07* | .45** | ||||
Fear | .58** | .26 | ||||
Anger | .61** | .11 | ||||
Social policy attitude: Asylum seekers | ||||||
Step 1 | .16** | .16** | ||||
Age | .20** | .07 | -.09 | -.09 | ||
Political Position | .40** | .38** | .23** | .22** | ||
Step 2 | .22** | .38** | ||||
Prejudice | .53** | .32** | .27* | |||
Threat | .58** | .24* | .13 | |||
Step 3 | .03* | .41** | ||||
Fear | .37** | .07 | ||||
Anger | .55** | .23* |
With respect to policy attitude regarding resettled refugees, age, political position or education did not have significant beta weights at step one and this was the case with steps two and three also. At step two, both prejudice and threat were significant; at step three, prejudice and threat remained significant. At step three, fear also had a significant beta weight. In other words, the most important variables for predicting more restrictive policy attitude towards refugee policy were high levels of prejudice, the perception of threat together with an increased fear of refugees. A significant amount of variance in more restrictive policy attitude towards refugees was explained by prejudice and threat at step two (
With respect to policy attitude relating to asylum seekers, right-wing political position had a significant beta weights at all three steps. At step two, prejudice and threat both were significant; at step three, prejudice remained significant. Furthermore, at step three, anger had a significant beta weight. In other words, the most important variables for predicting more restrictive policy attitude regarding resettled refugees were high levels of prejudice together with high anger against refugees and a right-wing political attitude. A significant amount of variance in more restrictive policy attitude towards asylum seekers was explained by political attitude at step one (
To analyse the qualitative dataset, the first author conducted a thematic analysis in an inductive way (see
The percentage of participants who left qualitative responses was 46% (
Theme 1: Asylum Seekers as ‘Illegals’ and ‘Queue Jumpers’ (42% of total themes) |
---|
Participants identified the method of arrival of asylum seekers as illegal and as ‘queue-jumpers’. Some also identified the method of arrival of asylum seekers as an example of how they ‘exploit’ Australia’s systems and processes. |
Theme 2: Threat Posed by New Arrivals (30% of total themes) |
Theme 3: Positive Comments Towards Resettled Refugees and Asylum Seekers (28% of total themes) |
The most prevalent theme was “Asylum seekers as ‘illegal’ and ‘queue jumpers’” which comprised of 42% of total themes coded. Within this theme, participants wrote about asylum seekers with regards to two broad issues. The first related to perceptions that asylum seekers who arrive by boat are ‘illegal’. For example, Participant No 4 (a 30 year old man) stated: “
The second most prevalent theme was “Threat posed by new arrivals” which comprised of 30% of the total themes. Only two respondents referred to asylum seekers in this theme with the remaining responses in made reference to refugees or migrants more generally. As such this theme was labelled threat posed by ‘new arrivals’ and is interpreted as indicating a more generalised concern about the threat posed by new arrivals to Australian society. Within this theme there were two sub-themes; the first related to symbolic orientated threats that involved concerns about a potential lack of integration of new arrivals. As Participant 22 (a 37 year old male) stated:
The third most theme involved positive comments and comprised of 28% of the total themes. There were three subthemes; the first being empathy towards new arrivals. For example, as Participant No 39 (a 22 year old woman) said, “
Through a mixed-methods community survey, this study examined the attitudes of members of the Australian community regarding social policies aimed at providing support and assistance to resettled refugees and asylum seekers who arrive by boat. The use of these methods allowed for the provision of complementary explanations for understanding the overall research question, with the qualitative data providing additional insights. At a global level, our findings underscore the differences in emotions and prejudice towards two groups of new arrivals to Australia. These findings reinforce previous research that points to the value in exploring ingroup attitudes, feelings and emotions beyond the broad label of ‘immigrant’ and focusing on specific subgroups (
The first of these antecedents is prejudice. Community members felt significantly more prejudice towards asylum seekers than resettled refugees. In addition, for both resettled refugees and asylum seekers, prejudice was an independent predictor of a more restrictive social policy attitude. Given the difference in levels of prejudice between the two groups, one could ask the question “is the animosity towards asylum seekers simply prejudice or racism?” However, our results indicate that the animosity goes beyond generalised prejudice. That is, prejudice alone cannot explain differences in attitudes towards the two groups (see also
The second of the antecedents is the influential, yet differential, role that emotions and prejudice play in predicting social policy attitudes. Specifically, fear and threat were independent predictors for more restrictive social policy relating to resettled refugees, while anger was an independent predictor for more restrictive social policy relating to asylum seekers. This is important as it suggests that emotions can play an important and different role in understanding outgroup reactions to specific subgroups, over and above measures of generalised prejudice. These findings contribute to a growing body of research that highlight the value in considering the differential roles emotions can play in predicting intergroup behaviour and attitudes (e.g.,
That anger was an independent predictor of more restrictive social policy for asylum seekers but not for resettled refugees is particularly noteworthy. Anger is theorised to involve appraisals of wrongdoing (e.g.,
The results relating to fear and threat were also revealing. Our results found that while there were higher levels of fear and threat towards asylum seekers compared to resettled refugees, in the regression, fear and threat were independent predictors for a more restrictive social policy for resettled refugees only. Our qualitative data offer some additional insights in this regard. The second most prominent theme related to threat posed by new arrivals. While there were a few explicit mentions of asylum seekers, in general comments in this theme were concerned perceptions of threat (both symbolic and realistic) posed by refugees and migrants more generally. The qualitative data offers additional insights here, suggesting that fear and threat may be functionally more relevant when thinking about ‘new arrivals’ more generally who may be considered threats, as opposed to asylum seekers who arrive by boat and who may be perceived to have violated a moral code. The perceived threat highlighted in the qualitative data adds to previous quantitative research highlighting the importance of realistic and symbolic threat as important concepts underpinning behavioural orientations towards outgroups (e.g.,
Finally, that right-leaning political orientation predicted more restrictive social policy attitudes for asylum seekers but not for refugees is noteworthy. This points to the influence of the political environment and that asylum seekers who arrive to Australia by boat have been the target of much negative right-wing political and media attention (e.g.,
In summary, the qualitative and quantitative data corroborate to provide an in-depth insight into the role of prejudice and emotions in social policy attitudes relating to resettled refugees and asylum seekers. First, when participants were explicitly asked about resettled refugees and asylum seekers in the quantitative section of the questionnaire, there were clear statistical differences in the level of felt emotions, prejudice, and support for social policy between these two groups. This suggests when the subgroup is explicitly defined, asylum seekers are viewed more negatively on a number of aspects, particularly with regards to feelings of anger. The qualitative data offers insights as to why anger may be so powerful. When participants were given the option to discuss any issues raised by the content of the questionnaire, the major theme that emerged related explicitly to asylum seekers and perceptions of illegality and ‘queue-jumping’. The results relating to resettled refugees, particularly regarding the predictive value of fear and threat for more restrictive social policy, and qualitative findings points a level of generalised outgroup hostility felt towards new arrivals perceived to threats Australians society, symbolically and realistically.
The findings of this research present a number of implications. First, our findings reinforce the centrality of anger and of perceptions of illegality and wrongdoing of asylum seekers who arrive by boat to Australia in shaping policy attitudes. Since this research was conducted, the Australian Government has implemented a number of policies that perpetuate the idea that asylum seekers who attempt to arrive in Australia by boat are breaking the law. This includes the implementation of ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’, a military-led border security operation that includes turning asylum seeker boats on route to Australia back to Indonesia and Sri Lanka. It also includes the continued referral of asylum seekers as ‘illegal maritime arrivals’ in policy documents and media releases (
Similarly, mainstream media reporting poses significant challenges for addressing negativity towards asylum seekers. As mentioned, the media often reinforces the false binary between asylum seekers and resettled refugees (e.g.
Clearly, shifting negative attitudes towards asylum seekers requires a significant change in political rhetoric, social norms, and media reporting. How such change can be achieved structurally remains a significant challenge. Some research highlights the role that social identities, such as national identity or groups formed around a shared opinion, can play to promote pro-social collective action (for example,
At the same time, individual change is also important and our findings do offer some practical implications in this regard. First, it is clear that prejudice and racism need to be addressed for both asylum seekers and resettled refugees. The fact that there is a difference between the perception of refugees and asylum seekers means that that anti-prejudice interventions have to take into account differences in prejudiced attitudes. Relatedly, anti-prejudice practitioners need to take into account the strong emotions involved in the attitude formation process. In an intervention, this cannot just involve giving people facts alone (e.g., that asylum seekers who arrive by boat are not illegal). Emotions, such as anger, fear and perceptions of threat need to be engaged as well. For example, with the fear and threat finding related to resettled refugees, interventions may seek to concentrate on the fact that integration into a host society is a two way process in that it requires a willingness for the host community to be welcoming and responsive to new arrivals (
While this research highlights a number of important findings, there are some limitations that should be highlighted. First, our mixed-methods approach offers alternative insights that could not be obtained from other approaches; however, we acknowledge that the fact it is cross-sectional means that we cannot tease apart the social-psychological processes at play. Second, to minimise any priming issues, the more controversial questions relating to policy and the open-ended qualitative until the end of the questionnaire; however, because all items were placed in the same order we cannot rule out order effect. Future research may seek to address these limitations by exploring the studied variables in an experimental setting. Future research may also seek to explore the causal relationship between the variables; for example, the relationship between feelings of anger towards asylum seekers, perceptions of moral code violations, and social policy attitude. Also, because we were trying to keep the questionnaire as short as possible to maximise the response rate, we used a one-item measure of prejudice as per
While attitudes toward resettled refugees versus asylum seekers are likely to affect the social policies implemented relating to their access to such support in the host society (
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. AS threat | — | |||||||||
2. AS anger | .68 | — | ||||||||
3. AS fear | .46 | .71 | — | |||||||
4. AS policy scale | .66 | .60 | .39 | — | ||||||
5. AS Prejudice | .70 | .56 | .30 | .64 | — | |||||
6. Refugee threat | .74 | .59 | .55 | .54 | .46 | — | ||||
7. Refugee fear | .48 | .65 | .81 | .37 | .26 | .64 | — | |||
8. Refugee anger | .55 | .74 | .67 | .42 | .32 | .70 | .82 | — | ||
9. Refugee policy scale | .62 | .60 | .50 | .66 | .47 | .68 | .68 | .60 | — | |
10. Refugee prejudice | .39 | .41 | .20 | .39 | .51 | .43 | .43 | .41 | .54 | — |
The authors Damian Arntzen, Tanya Harding, Julia Jones, Richard Moorfield, Alice Pead, and Alexandra Slight for collecting and inputting the data. The authors have no other support to report.
The authors have no funding to report.
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.