The role of intra-sexual competition in attitudes towards immigrants

Jan Antfolk, L Johansson, Minja Westerlund, UM Marcinkowska, Pekka Santtila

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We proposed the hypothesis that immigration attitudes (IA) could be partly explained by intra-sexual competition (ISC), as immigration can increase mate competition, negatively affecting mate access for local individuals with low mate value. To test this, we presented participants with masculinized/feminized images of males and females. Each image was paired with a background description. Participants reported whether the depicted person should be permitted residence and whether participants would help the person integrate. We also measured participants' mate value. Both men and women were more negative towards male than female immigrants. As expected, participants with lower mate value reported more negative IA, providing tentative support for the hypothesized association between ISC and IA. Because the manipulation of masculinity/femininity was only effective for female images, it remains unclear whether attractive (vs. less attractive) male immigrants elicit more negative IA.
Original languageUndefined/Unknown
Pages (from-to)84–89
Number of pages6
JournalPersonality and Individual Differences
Volume132
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Keywords

  • Anti-immigrant attitudes
  • Outgroup hostility
  • Intra-sexual competition
  • Mate value

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