Short Research Note The Role of Social Categorization and IdentityThreat in the Perception of Migrants

摘要

This paper investigates how the categorization of migrant workers shapes their reception. In anexperiment with Northern Irish Protestants we manipulated the representation of Poland to make theCatholicism of Polish migrants either more, or less, salient. Furthermore, judgements of Polishmigrants were obtained under conditions designed to encourage participants to believe that sectarianconflict in Northern Ireland was either resolved, or still a strong feature of the present sociallandscape. Overall, results showed that when Poland's Catholicism was salient, participants were lesswelcoming of Polish migrants. Furthermore, this effect was mediated by increases in the level ofsymbolic threat participants believed the migrants posed to participants' (Protestant) communityidentity.