Multiculturalism, Social Distance, and Xenophobia Among Non-Weird Individuals Toward Syrian Refugees: Positive and Negative Emotions as Moderators

Abstract

T & uuml;rkiye, the country hosting the most refugees in the world, hosted millions of refugees due to the Syrian civil war, the Taliban coup, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Among these communities, Syrian refugees are the majority in number and have been mainly influencing T & uuml;rkiye's agenda for the last decade. This unexpected and sudden contact elevated intergroup tension and conflict between host and Syrian refugee communities. We aimed to examine the association between multiculturalism, positive and negative emotions, perceived outgroup threat, social distance, and xenophobia toward refugees among non-WEIRD participants in the prejudice-intense intergroup context through two correlational studies (Ntotal = 898) to shed light on possible remedies for these conflicts. Study 1 revealed that multiculturalism negatively predicted social distance toward Syrian refugees. This association was mediated by positive and negative emotions. Study 2, which focused on xenophobia as an outcome, found that multiculturalism negatively predicted xenophobia, and positive and negative emotions had a mediator role on the association between these variables. We also found that participants with higher social distancing towards Syrian refugees had lower and poorer intergroup contact quality and perceived more outgroup threat than those with lower social distancing. The findings indicated that greater multiculturalism and positive emotions were associated with low social distance and xenophobia in the prejudice-intense context. We discussed the findings in terms of the potential benefits of multiculturalism and the positive emotions for attitudes towards refugees in prejudice-intense relationships between hosts and refugees.