Elsevier

Social Science Research

Volume 58, July 2016, Pages 68-79
Social Science Research

Universalism, conservation and attitudes toward minority groups

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2016.02.002Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The study considers attitudes toward diverse minority groups.

  • It shows that negative attitudes toward minority groups are an expression of one syndrome, called group-focused enmity (GFE).

  • The study examines the associations of the values universalism and conservation with attitudes toward minority groups.

  • It shows that the associations of attitudes toward minority groups with the two values are opposite but similar in size.

Abstract

Findings from previous studies corroborate the hypothesis that universalism and conservation values are associated with negative attitudes toward immigration. In the current study we examine whether universalism and conservation values also play a critical role in the explanation of attitudes toward other minority groups. Drawing on previous research on group-focused enmity, we explore its relations with universalism and conservation values in a German sample. Employing structural equation modeling, we find that individuals who prioritize universalism values approve of various minorities more whereas those who prioritize conservation values exhibit more disapproval.

Introduction

In the recent elections of the European Parliament in 2014, right-wing populist parties gained a considerable number of votes in many countries (e.g., the French Front National, the Freedom Party of Austria, and the United Kingdom Independent Party).1 During the election campaigns, political issues such as immigration (e.g., of refugees or of Sinti and Roma from Romania and Bulgaria) or the legal rights of gays and lesbians have been singled out as key topics by a number of European right-wing populist parties (Langenbacher and Schellenberg, 2011). By doing so, these parties appealed to voters’ negative attitudes toward several specific outgroups in society. Indeed, these developments corroborate recent findings suggesting that European citizens disapprove of several different social outgroups at the same time (Zick et al., 2011).

The observed co-occurrence of negative attitudes toward different outgroups has long been discussed in social psychological and sociological prejudice research. As Allport (1954, p. 68) stated more than 60 years ago, “one of the facts of which we are most certain is that people who reject one outgroup will tend to reject other outgroups.” For example, people who oppose Muslims are also expected to oppose homosexuals. Building on Allport's assumption, the phenomenon has commonly been described as group-focused enmity (GFE; Zick et al., 2010). It implies that prejudices toward different outgroups (e.g., foreigners, homeless people, Jews, women, gays and lesbians; Zick et al., 2008) can be described as being substantially interrelated (Zick et al., 2008), and share a common underlying motivational core – an ideology of inequality (Allport, 1954). Several elements of GFE have already been identified (e.g., devaluation of homeless people, anti-foreigner attitudes, anti-Semitism, sexism, support for the rights of the established; Zick et al., 2008). Indeed, “any feature that differentiates outgroups from the normative consensus of a dominant group can serve to indicate deviance, while also confirming the normality of the ingroup” (Asbrock et al., 2007, p. 7).

In order to scrutinize the sources and reasons for negative attitudes toward minority groups, researchers have often drawn on value research (Feldman, 2003, Rokeach, 1973, Schwartz, 1992). Several studies demonstrate that individual value priorities, particularly universalism and conservation, are strongly associated with negative attitudes toward immigration. Individuals who prioritize universalism values approve of immigration more whereas those who prioritize values of conservation exhibit more disapproval (Davidov et al., 2008a, Davidov and Meuleman, 2012, Davidov et al., 2014). However, the scope of these studies is generally limited to immigrants, and other minority groups are not taken into consideration. In the current study we are going to address this gap by examining whether universalism and conservation values also play an important role in the prediction of attitudes toward other minority groups.

Section snippets

Previous research

To date, there are numerous empirical studies which reinforce Allport's thesis by demonstrating that prejudice generalizes across different target groups (e.g., Akrami et al., 2011, Altemeyer, 1998, Ekehammar and Akrami, 2003, Zick et al., 2008). Indeed, one of the rare longitudinal studies on group-focused enmity revealed that the level and longitudinal change pattern of negative attitudes toward different minority groups are similar (Davidov et al., 2011). In addition, generalized negative

Aims of the current research

The current study aims at extending the current knowledge base by exploring the relations of group-focused enmity and attitudes toward different minority groups with universalism and conservation values:

  • 1)

    We test a higher-order factor model in which group-focused enmity is specified as a general, higher-order factor which represents prejudice toward six different minority groups (sexism, anti-Semitism, anti-foreigner attitudes, devaluation of homosexual people, devaluation of homeless people,

Schwartz's theory of basic human values and attitudes toward minority groups

In general, values may be conceived of as desirable goals which vary in importance. They serve as guiding principles in people's lives (Schwartz, 1992, Schwartz, 2010, Rokeach, 1973) and affect a person's thoughts and actions (Feather, 1995, Feather and McKee, 2008). They are commonly conceptualized as abstract social cognitions which transcend situations. By contrast, an attitude reflects the summarized evaluations of several beliefs concerning a certain and specific object (Davidov et al.,

Hypotheses

The first group of hypotheses is related to the measurement of group-focused enmity. Given the theoretical considerations and the empirical evidence so far, we expect that negative attitudes toward six minority groups (sexism, anti-Semitism, anti-foreigner attitudes, devaluation of homosexual people, devaluation of homeless people, anti-Muslim attitudes) are positively related to each other but can be empirically distinguished from each other. In technical terms, we expect them to reflect a

Sample

Data were drawn from two waves of the GESIS Online Panel Pilot (GOPP), a German online access panel study. The GOPP consists of German-speaking respondents aged 18 years and older who use the Internet at home or outside of their home not only for work-related purposes. The random sample was drawn by using the dual approach for the telephone recruitment. The cumulative response rate for the first survey was 5% (with an overall response rate of 17.8%).5

Descriptive results

Table 1 reports means, standard deviations and frequency distributions for the items measuring attitudes toward minority groups. The means of the items range between M = 1.43 for the second sexism item (SE2) and M = 2.34 for the second item assessing devaluation of homeless people (HL2). In terms of frequencies, 7.4% percent of the respondents indicated their agreement with the statement “It is more important for a wife to help her husband's career than to have one herself” (SE2), whereas 48.5%

Summary and conclusions

Findings from previous studies support the hypothesis that individual value priorities, particularly universalism and conservation, are associated with negative attitudes toward immigration. Individuals who prioritize universalism values approve of immigration more whereas those who prioritize conservation exhibit more disapproval. However, the scope of these studies has been generally limited to immigrants, and they did not consider other minority groups. In the current study we examined

Acknowledgments

The first author would like to thank Matthias Sand, Dr. Lars Kaczmirek and Dr. Bella Struminskaya from GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences for valuable comments. The work of the second author was part of her doctoral research at the research training group SOCLIFE (University of Cologne) funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG). The third author would like to thank the University Research Priority Program (URPP) ‘Social Networks’. All authors would like to thank Lisa

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