COVID-19 and prejudice against migrants: the mediating roles of need for cognitive closure and binding moral foundations. A comparative study

Addressing the effect of concern with COVID-19 threat on prejudice towards immigrants: The sequential mediating role of need for cognitive closure and desire for cultural tightness

The link between threat and anti-immigrant prejudice is well-established. Relatedly, recent research has also shown that situational threats (such as concern with COVID-19 threat) increase anti-immigrant prejudice through the mediating role of desire for cultural tightness. This study aims to further our understanding of the psychological processes underlying the relation between concern with COVID-19 threat and increased negative attitudes towards immigrants by considering the mediational role of an individual epistemic motivation (i.e., the need for cognitive closure). A study was conducted on a large sample of Italian respondents covering all the Italian regions. Findings revealed that high concern with COVID-19 threat led to increased negative attitudes towards immigrants through the sequential mediating role of higher need for cognitive closure, leading in turn to higher desire for cultural tightness. Implications of these findings for a timely contextualized study of anti-immigrant prejudice will be highlighted.

The Moral Foundations of Desired Cultural Tightness

People vary on their desire for strict norms, and the moral underpinnings of these differences have yet to be explored. The current research examined whether and how moral beliefs held by individuals would affect the extent to which they want their country to be tight (i.e., having strict social norms) or loose (i.e., having more permissive social norms). In particular, the effects of the “binding” and “individualizing” foundations, which are moral beliefs focused on the importance of groups and individuals, respectively, were examined. We hypothesized that the binding foundations could predict people’s desire for cultural tightness. We also hypothesized that the perception that one’s society is threatened may drive this effect. Three studies were conducted using both cross-sectional (Studies 1 and 3) and two-wave (Study 2) designs. Demographic variables and participants’ political orientation effects were controlled. In Study 1, only the binding foundations significantly predicted higher desired tightness. In Study 2, binding foundations predicted desired tightness measured at follow-up. In Study 3, the positive effect of perceived threat on desired tightness via the binding foundations was confirmed. From additional within-paper analyses we also have some evidence of significant relationships, albeit unstable across studies, between desired tightness and individualizing foundations.

Concerns over COVID-19 and prejudice: Pre- and during-pandemic in Italy

While at first the fear of COVID-19 disease spread was limited by the fact that the pandemic appeared to be confined to China, the growing emergency in Italy and the rapid escalation in positive cases and deaths have made the threat of this disease a national as well as global phenomenon. In the present research, a questionnaire was collected both before (n = 396) and during (n = 250) the outbreak of the pandemic in Italy. The aim of the research was to analyze the possible mediation of binding moral foundations on the relationship between concerns over COVID-19 and prejudice vis-à-vis immigrants. As hypothesized, the results show that concerns over COVID-19 increased greatly after the start of the Italian pandemic. Moreover, both before and during the pandemic, the relationship between concerns over COVID-19 and prejudice toward immigrants is mediated by binding moral foundations.

How are moral foundations associated with empathic traits and moral identity?

We examined the relationship between moral foundations, empathic traits, and moral identity using an online survey via Mechanical Turk. In order to determine how moral foundations contribute to empathic traits and moral identity, we performed classical correlation analysis as well as Bayesian correlation analysis, Bayesian ANCOVA, and Bayesian regression analysis. Results showed that individualizing foundations (harm/care, fairness/reciprocity) and binding foundations (ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, purity/sanctity) had various different relationships with empathic traits. In addition, the individualizing versus binding foundations showed somewhat reverse relationships with internalization and symbolization of moral identity. This suggests that moral foundations can contribute to further understanding of empathic traits and moral identity and how they relate to moral behavior in reality. We discuss the implications of these results for moral educators when starting to teach students about moral issues.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-021-02372-5.