Are Immigrants Scapegoats?: The Reciprocal Relationships Between Subjective Well-Being, Political Distrust, and Anti-immigrant Attitudes in Young Adulthood
2023 (English)In: Psychological Reports, ISSN 0033-2941, E-ISSN 1558-691X, Vol. 126, no 3, p. 1392-1415, article id 00332941211065951Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
This study examined the impact of native youth's subjective well-being on exclusionary attitudes toward immigrants, seeking to understand the relationship between subjective well-being, political distrust, and anti-immigrant attitudes over time. Using longitudinal data, we followed three cohorts of native young adults (N = 1352; Mage = 22.72, SD = 3.1) in Sweden over a period of 2 years. The results showed that subjective well-being did not predict an increase in anti-immigrant attitudes among native youth, but anti-immigrant attitudes had a significant impact on subjective well-being. The data also found bidirectional and mutually reinforcing relationships between subjective well-being and political distrust, and between political distrust and anti-immigrant attitudes. These results highlight that improving young adults' subjective well-being represents an important basis for preventing the development of political distrust, which in turn could reduce native youth's susceptibility to adopt hostile attitudes toward immigrants.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2023. Vol. 126, no 3, p. 1392-1415, article id 00332941211065951
Keywords [en]
young adults, anti-immigrant attitudes, subjective well-being, political distrust
National Category
Sociology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-49980DOI: 10.1177/00332941211065951ISI: 000748522600001PubMedID: 35014588Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85122790659OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-49980DiVA, id: diva2:1635536
2022-02-072022-02-072023-07-04Bibliographically approved