Keeping the vermin out: Perceived disease threat and ideological orientations as predictors of exclusionary immigration attitudes

Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology

Volumn 20, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 299-316

  Green, Eva G T ^a   Krings, Franciska ^a   Staerklé, Christian ^a   Bangerter, Adrian ^b   CléMence, Alain ^a   Wagner Egger, Pascal ^c   Bornand, Thierry ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LAUSANNE   (Switzerland)

^b UNIVERSITY OF NEUCHÂTEL   (Switzerland)

^c UNIVERSITY OF FRIBOURG   (Switzerland)

Author keywords

BDW; Disease threat; Evolutionary psychology; Immigration attitudes; SDO; Social representations theory

Indexed keywords

EID: 77955606686     PISSN: 10529284     EISSN: 10991298     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/casp.1037     Document Type: Article

References (79)

1. Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.
2. Altemeyer, B. (1988). Enemies of freedom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
3. Augoustinos, M., Walker, I., & Donaghue, N. (2006). Social cognition: An integrated introduction (2nd ed.), London: Sage.
4. Bangerter, A., Green, E. G. T., & Clémence, A. (2009). Dynamic public perceptions of emerging infectious diseases. Unpublished raw data.
5. Bar-Tal, D. (1990). Group beliefs: A conception for analyzing group structure, processes and behavior. New York: Springer-Verlag.
6. Brewer, M. B. (1999). The psychology of prejudice: Ingroup love or outgroup hate. Journal of Social Issues, 55, 429-444.
7. Clémence, A. (2001). Social positioning and social representations. In K. Deaux, & G. Philogène (Eds.), Representations of the social (pp. 83-95). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
8. Cottrell, C. A., & Neuberg, S. L. (2005). Different emotional reactions to different groups: A sociofunctional threat-based approach to prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 770-789.
9. Curtis, V. A. (2007). Dirt, disgust and disease: A natural history of hygiene. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 61, 660-664.
10. de Zwart, O., Veldhuijzen, I. K., Elam, G., Aro, A. R., Abraham, T., & Bishop, G. D., et al. (2007). Avian influenza risk perception, Europe and Asia. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 13, 290-293.
11. Des Jarlais, D. C., Galea, S., Tracy, M., Tross, S., & Vlahov, D. (2006). Stigmatization of newly emerging infectious diseases: AIDS and SARS. American Journal of Public Health, 96, 561-567.
12. Diamond, J. (1997). Guns, germs, and steel. New York: Norton.
13. Doise, W. (1990). Les représentations sociales [Social representations]. In C. Bonnet, R. Ghiglione, & T. F. Richard (Eds.), Traité de Psychologie Cognitive (Vol. 3, pp. 111-174). Paris: Dunod.
14. Doise, W., & Staerklé, C. (2002). From social to political psychology: The societal approach. In K. R. Monroe (Ed.), Political psychology (pp. 151-171). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
15. Doty, R. M., Peterson, B. E., & Winter, D. (1991). Threat and authoritarianism in the United States, 1978-1987. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 629-640.
16. Douglas, M. (1992). Risk and blame. Essays in cultural theory. London: Routledge.
17. Duckitt, J. (2001). A dual process cognitive-motivational theory of ideology and prejudice. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 33, pp. 41-113). San Diego: Academic Press.
18. Dudo, A. D., Dahlstrom, M. F., & Brossard, D. (2007). Reporting a potential pandemic. A risk-related assessment of avian influenza coverage in U.S. newspapers. Science Communication, 28, 429-454.
19. Duncan, L. A., Schaller, M., & Park, J. H. (2009). Perceived vulnerability to disease: Development and validation of a 15-item self-report instrument. Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 541-546.
20. Esses, V. M., Jackson, L. M., & Armstrong, T. L. (1998). Intergroup competition and attitudes toward immigrants and immigration: An instrumental model of group conflict. Journal of Social Issues, 54, 699-724.
21. Faulkner, J., Schaller, M., Park, J. H., & Duncan, L. A. (2004). Evolved disease-avoidance mechanisms and contemporary xenophobic attitudes. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 7, 333-353.
22. Green, E. G. T. (2007). Guarding the gates of Europe: A typological analysis of immigration attitudes in 21 European countries. International Journal of Psychology, 42, 365-379.
23. Green, E. G. T. (2009). Who can enter? A multilevel analysis on public support for immigration criteria across 20 European countries. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 12, 41-60.
24. Guimond, S., Dambrun, M., Michinov, N., & Duarte, S. (2003). Does social dominance generate prejudice? Integrating individual and contextual determinants of intergroup cognitions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 697-721.
25. Haselton, M. G., & Nettle, D. (2006). The paranoid optimist: An integrative evolutionary model of cognitive biases. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 47-66.
26. Henry, P. J. (2008). College sophomores in the laboratory redux: Influences of a narrow data base on social psychology's view of the nature of prejudice. Psychological Inquiry, 19, 49-71.
27. Ho, S. S., Brossard, D., & Scheufele, D. A. (2007). The polls trends: Public reactions to global health threats and infectious diseases. Public Opinion Quarterly, 71, 671-692.
28. Hodson, G., & Costello, K. (2007). Interpersonal disgust, ideological orientations, and dehumaniza-tion as predictors of intergroup attitudes. Psychological Science, 18, 691-698.
29. Jiang, X., Elam, G., Yuen, C., Voeten, H., Zwart, O., & Veldhuijzen, I., et al. (2009). The perceived threat of SARS and its impact on precautionary actions and adverse consequences: A qualitative study among Chinese communities in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 16, 58-67.
30. Jodelet, D. (1991). Madness and social representations. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
31. Jodelet, D. (2005). Formes et figures d'alterité [Forms and figures of otherness]. In M. SanchezMazas, & L. Licata (Eds.), L'Autre. Regards psychosociaux (pp. 23-47). Grenoble, France: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble.
32. Joffe, H. (1999). Risk and the "other". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
33. Joffe, H. (2003). Risk: From perception to social representation. British Journal of Social Psychology, 42, 55-73.
34. Joffe, H., & Haarhoff, G. (2002). Representations of far-flung illnesses: The case of Ebola in Britain. Social Science and Medicine, 54, 955-969.
35. Joffe, H., & Lee, N. Y. L. (2004). Social representation of a food risk: The Hong Kong avian bird flu epidemic. Journal of Health Psychology, 9, 517-533.
36. Joffe, H., & Staerklé, C. (2007). The centrality of the self-control ethos in Western aspersions regarding outgroups: A social representational analysis of common stereotype content. Culture and Psychology, 13, 395-418.
37. Jost, J. T., & Major, B. (2001). The psychology of legitimacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
38. Kline, R. (2005). Principles and practice of structural equation modeling (2nd ed.), New York: Guilford press.
39. Krings, F., Green, E. G. T., Bangerter, A., Staerklé, C., Bornand, T., & Clémence, A., et al. (2009). Preventing contagion with avian influenza: Attitudes toward foreigners moderate the relation between perceived threat and outgroup avoidance beliefs. Manuscript submitted for publication.
40. Krosnick, J. A. (1999). Survey research. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 537-567.
41. Kurzban, R., & Leary, M. R. (2001). Evolutionary origins of stigmatization: The functions of social exclusion. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 187-208.
42. Leppin, A., & Aro, A. R. (2009). Risk perceptions related to SARS and Avian Influenza: Theoretical foundations of current empirical research. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 16, 7-29.
43. Mak, W. W. S., Mo, P. K. H., Cheung, R. Y. M., Woo, J., Cheung, F. M., & Lee, D. (2006). Comparative stigma of HIV/AIDS, SARS, and tuberculosis in Hong Kong. Social Science & Medicine, 63, 1912-1922 .
44. Markel, H., & Stern, A. M. (2002). The foreignness of germs: The persistent association of immigrants and disease in American society. The Milbank Quarterly, 80, 757-788.
45. Navarette, C. D., & Fessler, D. M. T. (2006). Disease avoidance and ethnocentrism: The effects of disease vulnerability and disgust sensitivity on intergroup attitudes. Evolution and Human Behavior, 27, 270-282.
46. Nemeroff, C. J. (1995). Magical thinking about illness virulence: Conceptions of germs from "safe" versus "dangerous" others. Health Psychology, 14, 147-151.
47. Norenzayan, A., Schaller, M., & Heine, S. J. (2006). Evolution and culture. In M. Schaller, J. A. Simpson, & D. T. Kenrick (Eds.), Evolution and social psychology (pp. 343-366). New York: Psychology Press.
48. Öhman, A., & Mineka, S. (2001). Fears, phobias, and preparedness: Toward an evolved module of fear and fear learning. Psychological Review, 108, 483-522.
49. Osterholm, T. (2005). Preparing for the next pandemic. Foreign Affairs, 84, 24-37.
50. Park, J. H., Faulkner, J., & Schaller, M. (2003). Evolved disease-avoidance processes and contemporary anti-social behavior: Prejudicial attitudes and avoidance of people with physical disabilities. Journal of Nonverbal behavior, 27, 65-87.
51. Park, J. H., Schaller, M., & Crandall, C. S. (2007). Pathogen-avoidance mechanisms and the stigmatization of obese people. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28, 410-414.
52. Pehrson, S., & Green, E. G. T. (in press). Who we are and who can join us: National identity content and entry criteria for new immigrants. Journal of Social Issues.
53. Person, B., Sy, F., Holton, K., Govert, B., & Liang, A. NCID/SARS community outreach team. (2004). Fear and stigma: The epidemic within the SARS outbreak. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 10, 358-363.
54. Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L. M., & Malle, B. F. (1994). Social dominance orientation: A personality variable predicting social and political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 741-763.
55. Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 879-891.
56. Riek, B. M., Mania, E. W., & Gaertner, S. L. (2006). Intergroup threat and outgroup attitudes: A meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10, 336-353.
57. Rozin, P., Haidt, J., & McCauley, C. R. (2000). Digust. In M. Lewis, & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (2nd ed., pp. 637-653). New York: Guilford Press.
58. Sanchez-Mazas, M., & Licata, L. (2008). Qui a peur de l'Autre? Emotion, pensée et mise en altérité dans l'oeuvre de Denise Jodelet. In B. Madiot, E. Lage, & A. Arruda (Eds.), Une approche engagée en psychologie sociale: L'oeuvre de Denise Jodelet (An engaged approach to social psychology : The work of Denise Jodelet), Ramonville Saint-Agne, France: Editions érès.
59. Savage, R. (2007). "Disease incarnate": Biopolitical discourse and genocidal dehumanisation in the age of modernity. Journal of Historical Sociology, 20, 404-440.
60. Schaller, M. (2006). Parasites, behavioral defenses, and the social psychological mechanisms through which cultures are evoked. Psychological Inquiry, 17, 96-101.
61. Schaller, M., & Murray, D. R. (2008). Pathogens, personality, and culture: Disease prevalence predicts worldwide variability in sociosexuality, extraversion, and openness to experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 212-221.
62. Schaller, M., Park, J. H., & Faulkner, J. (2003). Prehistoric dangers and contemporary prejudices. European Review of Social Psychology, 14, 105-137.
63. Sears, D. O. (1986). College sophomores in the laboratory: Influences of a narrow database on social psychology's view of human nature. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 515-530.
64. Sherif, M. (1967). Group conflict and cooperation: Their social psychology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
65. Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory of social hierarchy and oppression. New York: Cambridge University Press.
66. Sontag, S. (1989). AIDS and its metaphors. London: Allen Lane.
67. Staerklé, C. (2009). Policy attitudes, ideological values and social representations. Personality and Social Psychology Compass, 3, 1096-1112.
68. Stephan, W. G., & Renfro, C. L. (2003). The role of threat in intergroup relations. In D. M. Mackie, & E. R. Smith (Eds.), From prejudice to intergroup emotions. Differentiated reactions to social groups (pp. 191-207). New York: Psychology Press.
69. Suedfeld, P., & Schaller, M. (2002). Authoritarianism and the Holocaust: Some cognitive and affective implications. In L. S. Newman, & R. Erber (Eds.), What social psychology can tell us about the Holocaust? Understanding perpetrator behavior (pp. 68-90). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
70. Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2001). Using multivariate statistics (4th ed.), Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
71. The Economist. (20 October 2005). On a wing and a scare. Retrieved 1 September 2008, from http://www.economist.com
72. Thornhill, R., Fincher, C. L., & Aran, D. (2009). Parasites, democratization, and the liberalization of values across contemporary countries. Biological Reviews, 84, 113-131.
73. Tooby, J., & Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foundations of culture. In J. Barkow, L. Cosmides, & J. Tooby (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture (pp. 19-136). New York: Oxford University Press.
74. Tourangeau, R., Rips, L. J., & Rasinski, K. A. (2000). The psychology of survey response. New York: Cambridge University Press.
75. Wagner, W., & Hayes, N. (2005). Everyday discourse and common sense: The theory of social representations. Basinstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
76. Wagner, W., Kronberger, N., & Seifert, F. (2002). Collective symbolic coping with new technology: Knowledge, images and public discourse. British Journal of Social Psychology, 41, 323-343.
77. Wagner, W., & Wagner, G. P. (2003). Examining the modularity concept in evolutionary psychology: The level genes, mind, and culture. Journal of Cultural and Evolutionary Psychology, 1, 135-165.
78. van Vugt, M., & Schaller, M. (2008). Evolutionary approaches to group dynamics: An introduction. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 12, 1-6.
79. WHO. (2009). Epidemic and pandemic alert and response: Avian influenza. Retrieved 4 April 2009, from http://www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/en/