TY - JOUR

T1 - The Personal Foundations of Political Tolerance towards Immigrants

AU - Freitag, Markus

AU - Rapp, Carolin

PY - 2015/1/1

Y1 - 2015/1/1

N2 - In this paper, we expand previous research on the psychological foundations of attitudes towards immigrants by evaluating the role of the Big Five personality traits with regard to the formation of political tolerance. Following the literature, we elaborate tolerance as a sequential concept of rejection and acceptance to uncover differentiating effects of personality on both immigrant-specific prejudices as well as on the assignment of the right to vote as a pivotal political privilege to this group. Using a representative sample of the Swiss population, with its distinctive history related to the immigration issue, our two-step Heckman selection models reveal that extroverts and people who score low in agreeableness exhibit negative attitudes towards immigrants. At the same time, only openness to experience is significantly connected to the likeliness of granting immigrants the right to vote.

AB - In this paper, we expand previous research on the psychological foundations of attitudes towards immigrants by evaluating the role of the Big Five personality traits with regard to the formation of political tolerance. Following the literature, we elaborate tolerance as a sequential concept of rejection and acceptance to uncover differentiating effects of personality on both immigrant-specific prejudices as well as on the assignment of the right to vote as a pivotal political privilege to this group. Using a representative sample of the Swiss population, with its distinctive history related to the immigration issue, our two-step Heckman selection models reveal that extroverts and people who score low in agreeableness exhibit negative attitudes towards immigrants. At the same time, only openness to experience is significantly connected to the likeliness of granting immigrants the right to vote.

KW - Big Five Personality Traits

KW - Immigrants

KW - Political Tolerance

KW - Switzerland

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84922447434&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/1369183X.2014.924847

DO - 10.1080/1369183X.2014.924847

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:84922447434

VL - 41

SP - 351

EP - 373

JO - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

JF - Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

SN - 1369-183X

IS - 3

ER -