Positive Contact with North Koreans Can Extend to South Koreans' Support for Refugees

• In Event: Hearing Both Sides: Understanding Refugee Newcomers’ Resettlement in Canada and South Korea

Abstract

Since the sudden arrival of around 500 Yemeni citizens in 2018, South Korea has been sharply divided regarding whether to welcome the asylum seekers. Given the division of the Korean peninsula, we examined the Secondary Transfer Effect (Pettigrew, 2009; Schmid et al., 2012; Vezzali et al., 2018); that is, whether positive contact with a primary outgroup, North Koreans, may influence South Koreans’ willingness to accept a novel outgroup, Yemeni refugees. In another divided society, the higher quality of contact with the primary outgroup was positively related to support for Syrian refugees (Schulz & Taylor, 2018) and this link was mediated by perspective taking and attitude toward the primary outgroup. Extending this previous research, we first examined whether the quality of contact with North Korean would affect support for Yemeni refugees via perspective taking and intergroup attitude. In addition, we tested another model with threat and anxiety as mediators because recent research using a text mining method found that the two factors were mentioned as the most prominent topics in comments on online news regarding Yemeni refugees (Song & Song, 2019).

Participants (N = 454, M age = 38.38, SD age = 10.83; 48.2% female) were asked to complete a set of online questionnaires measuring the quality of their contact with North Koreans, perspective taking (M_1), intergroup attitude (M_2) , anxiety (M_3) , threat (M_4) , and support for Yemeni refugee resettlement (e.g., creating opening policy, support for educational inclusion/medical service). We first conducted a chain mediation analysis for testing the mediation of the quality of primary out-group contact via M_1 and M_2. We conducted the same analysis for testing mediation via M_3 and M_4. We used Model 6 in the SPSS macro PROCESS (Hayes, 2012).

The results show that perspective taking and intergroup attitudes independently mediate the relation between the quality of contact and support for the refugees (Figure 1). The direct effect was insignificant, t(450) = 1.83, p = .069. However, the total effect was significant, t(452) = 7.92, p < .001. The total indirect effect of quality of contact on support for the refugees was also significant (.37, CI [.1655, .3530]). The relation between quality of contact on support for the refugees was mediated by threat and anxiety independently and collectively (Figure 2). The direct effect (t(450) = 6.90, p < .001) and the total effect (t(452) = 7.92, p < .001) were significant. The total indirect effect of quality of contact on support for the refugees was also significant and comprised of M_3 (.07, CI [.0104, .1285]), M_4 (.01, CI [.0001, .0301]) and the chain mediation of M_3 and M_4 (.01, CI [.0001, .0274]).

The current results suggest that (1) South Koreans' perceptions of North Koreans can be generalized to a novel outgroup and (2) both perspective-taking abilities and emotional reactions influence the relation between the quality of South Koreans’contact with North Koreans and their support for Yemenis.

Authors

• Jung Yun Lee, Yonsei University
  Presenting Author

• Kyong-Sun Jin, Sungshin Women’s Univeristy
  Non-Presenting Author

• Laura K. Taylor, University College Dublin (UCD)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Hyun-Joo Song, Yonsei University
  Non-Presenting Author