Intergroup relations and immigrant integration: Social identity, out-group animosity, and integration in the context of Europe and Turkey

The issue of immigration has retained its significance, particularly in the wake of recent political crises in Europe. Given the substantial influx of individuals towards European and Turkish borders and increasing number of immigrants trigger diverse responses among the citizens of host countries. Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) provides a comprehensive understanding to intergroup relations by underlining the cognitive factors in social categorization. According to the theory, social identification reflects the degree of commitment to a specific collective identity, that provides a sense of belonging. Along with the degree of attachment to the in-group, contextual and individual factors determine one's attitudes towards out-group members. Within the socio-political milieu characterized by robust native affiliations; immigrants are perceived as external entities and a threat in many dimensions. Against this backdrop, the present thesis seeks to explore attitudes towards immigrants and integration in the context of Europe and Turkey. The thesis also attempts to investigate the effect of a possible mitigation strategy: having information about immigrants and the potentially moderating effect of national identity representation on attitudes towards immigrants and integration. The first section examines attitudes toward immigrants and integration within the European context. The first section consists of two chapters. The first chapter aims to analyze the relationship between being informed about immigrants and attitudes toward immigrants and integration in Europe by using 'Eurobarometer 469' data. The second chapter examines the role of different identity representation of European natives on attitudes toward immigrants by using 'European Values Survey' data (EVS7 – 2017). The second section focuses on Turkey and makes use of a survey experiment to investigate the mitigation potential of information valence. In the survey experiment, participants were exposed to positive or negative fake information across texts with realistic and symbolic content. The substantive content first analyzes how the valence of information affects attitudes toward refugees and immigrants, as well as the moderating effect of national identity representation. The second experimental chapter investigate the effect of information valence on attitudes toward acculturation strategies in Turkey, and how this effect is moderated by different national identity representations (ethnic vs. civic). The preliminary results indicate that having knowledge about immigrants and ethnic identity significantly affect attitudes toward immigrants in Europe. In the second section, while the valence of information is found to have no significant effect on attitudes toward immigrants and acculturation, ethnic identity emerged as a significant factor shaping attitudes toward immigrants, refugees, and acculturation in Turkey.