Religion, Nationality, and Empathetic Responses to Refugees

• In Event: Political Affect and Racialized Groups

Abstract

Is empathetic media effective in shifting readers’ attitudes toward refugee policies? Do emotional responses differ between individuals who are exposed to accounts of refugees with different religions and national origins? To shed light on these questions, we present the results of two recent survey experiments conducted in the United Kingdom. The experiments measured the emotional responses, opinions, and willingness to engage in political action of UK residents (N = 1400 and 2500). Treatments exposed these citizens to empathetic articles about refugees, whose descriptions varied in nationality (Sudanese/Syrian) and religion (Christian/Muslim/Religion omitted). Comparison with a placebo control group showed that empathetic appeals indeed induce empathy in media consumers and encourage more open attitudes toward refugee admission, but largely fail if individuals have strong pre-existing prejudice against refugees. Results also show that most UK residents report less support for open refugee policies when considering Muslim refugees than they do when they consider Christian refugees, regardless of refugees' national origin. Christian refugee treatments were the most effective in dampening anti-refugee political action for the majority of respondents, but were the least effective in motivating pro-refugee action among the subset of respondents with lower prior antipathy to refugees. Treatment effects had a noticeable interaction with the preexisting outgroup antipathy; in fact, treated respondents with high prior antipathy hardly differed from the control group in emotions, opinions, and behavior. We conclude that empathetic media appeals about refugees are effective in generating empathy and shifting policy opinions for most individuals, but hardly influence individuals with strong prior feelings of antipathy towards refugees.

Authors

• Reed Rasband, Harvard University

• Christopher F. Karpowitz, Brigham Young University

• Joshua Ronald Gubler, Brigham Young University