Addressing the effect of concern with COVID-19 threat on prejudice towards immigrants: The sequential mediating role of need for cognitive closure and desire for cultural tightness

Flavia Albarello; Silvana Mula; Federico Contu; Conrad Baldner; Arie W Kruglanski; Antonio Pierro

doi:10.1016/j.ijintrel.2023.101755

Addressing the effect of concern with COVID-19 threat on prejudice towards immigrants: The sequential mediating role of need for cognitive closure and desire for cultural tightness

Int J Intercult Relat. 2023 Mar:93:101755. doi: 10.1016/j.ijintrel.2023.101755. Epub 2023 Jan 10.

Authors

Flavia Albarello¹, Silvana Mula¹, Federico Contu¹, Conrad Baldner¹, Arie W Kruglanski², Antonio Pierro¹

Affiliations

¹ Sapienza - University of Rome, Italy.
² University of Maryland, USA.

Abstract

The link between threat and anti-immigrant prejudice is well-established. Relatedly, recent research has also shown that situational threats (such as concern with COVID-19 threat) increase anti-immigrant prejudice through the mediating role of desire for cultural tightness. This study aims to further our understanding of the psychological processes underlying the relation between concern with COVID-19 threat and increased negative attitudes towards immigrants by considering the mediational role of an individual epistemic motivation (i.e., the need for cognitive closure). A study was conducted on a large sample of Italian respondents covering all the Italian regions. Findings revealed that high concern with COVID-19 threat led to increased negative attitudes towards immigrants through the sequential mediating role of higher need for cognitive closure, leading in turn to higher desire for cultural tightness. Implications of these findings for a timely contextualized study of anti-immigrant prejudice will be highlighted.

Keywords: Anti-immigrant attitudes; COVID-19; Desire for cultural tightness; Ecological threats; Uncertainty.