The Relationship of Personality, Framing Effect and Attitudes towards Migrants

Abstract

The objective of this study was to examine if big five
personality traits, right-wing authoritarianism, gender and
religiousness predict attitudes towards migrants. The
influence of being exposed to different forms of newspaper
articles on attitudes was also examined, as well as the
moderator effect of personality traits, right-wing
authoritarianism, religiousness and gender in the
relationship between article valence and attitudes towards
migrants in adolescents. One hundred and two adolescents,
with an average age of 18 years, participated in the
research. The research was conducted on two occasions. In
the first part, participants completed questionnaires
measuring right-wing authoritarianism, personality traits (BFI)
and attitudes towards migrants. In the second part,
participants were presented with a newspaper article
containing positive, negative or neutral content regarding the
migrant crisis. Afterwards, the adolescents completed the
attitudes questionnaire again. The results show that
extraversion is negatively associated with the perception of
social and health-economic threat. Agreeableness is
negatively associated with the perception of social threat,
and openness negatively with the perception of cultural
threat. More authoritarian individuals, as well as male
adolescents, perceive migrants as a bigger threat. In
general, we can conclude that the framing effect in the
context of the migrant crisis is confirmed and that
religiousness and authoritarianism moderate the relationship
between article valence and the perception of cultural threat.