Premium
Perceived ethnic superiority and immigrants' attitudes towards multiculturalism and the national majority
Author(s) -
Mähönen Tuuli Anna,
Brylka Asteria,
JasinskajaLahti Inga
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1002/ijop.12048
Subject(s) - outgroup , ethnic group , multiculturalism , psychology , immigration , social psychology , ingroups and outgroups , identification (biology) , sociology , political science , pedagogy , botany , anthropology , law , biology
Despite the recent multidimensional conceptualisations of social identities, previous research on the relationship between ingroup identification and outgroup attitudes has approached the former mainly through the strength of cognitive‐emotional identification. In our study among Russian‐speaking immigrants living in Finland ( N = 312), we focused on the direct and interactive effects of the strength of ethnic identification and perceived ethnic superiority on immigrants' support for multiculturalism and outgroup attitudes towards national majority. First, we found perceived ethnic superiority to be directly and negatively associated with outgroup attitudes. Second, we found a positive relationship between ethnic identification and support for multiculturalism only when ethnic superiority was not perceived. The results highlight the different ramifications of high ethnic identification and perceived superiority and speak for the destructive attitudinal effects of the latter.