TY - JOUR
T1 - The Personal Foundations of Political Tolerance towards Immigrants
AU - Freitag, Markus
AU - Rapp, Carolin
PY - 2015/1/1
Y1 - 2015/1/1
N2 - In this paper, we expand previous research on the psychological foundations of attitudes towards immigrants by evaluating the role of the Big Five personality traits with regard to the formation of political tolerance. Following the literature, we elaborate tolerance as a sequential concept of rejection and acceptance to uncover differentiating effects of personality on both immigrant-specific prejudices as well as on the assignment of the right to vote as a pivotal political privilege to this group. Using a representative sample of the Swiss population, with its distinctive history related to the immigration issue, our two-step Heckman selection models reveal that extroverts and people who score low in agreeableness exhibit negative attitudes towards immigrants. At the same time, only openness to experience is significantly connected to the likeliness of granting immigrants the right to vote.
AB - In this paper, we expand previous research on the psychological foundations of attitudes towards immigrants by evaluating the role of the Big Five personality traits with regard to the formation of political tolerance. Following the literature, we elaborate tolerance as a sequential concept of rejection and acceptance to uncover differentiating effects of personality on both immigrant-specific prejudices as well as on the assignment of the right to vote as a pivotal political privilege to this group. Using a representative sample of the Swiss population, with its distinctive history related to the immigration issue, our two-step Heckman selection models reveal that extroverts and people who score low in agreeableness exhibit negative attitudes towards immigrants. At the same time, only openness to experience is significantly connected to the likeliness of granting immigrants the right to vote.
KW - Big Five Personality Traits
KW - Immigrants
KW - Political Tolerance
KW - Switzerland
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84922447434&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/1369183x.2014.924847
DO - 10.1080/1369183x.2014.924847
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84922447434
SN - 1369-183X
VL - 41
SP - 351
EP - 373
JO - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
JF - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
IS - 3
ER -
