Explaining attitudes toward South-South immigrants: The relevant roles of contact quality, similarity and social dominance orientation in a Chilean case

Abstract

The literature has examined individual predictors of attitudes toward immigrants, controlled by supra-individual variables, especially in European and North American countries. Nevertheless, this analysis has not been made using South-south migration communities. Thus, this study analyzed the individual predictors of the attitudes toward immigrants from Perú and Venezuela in a Chilean sample, controlling supra-individual variables. We used available data (N total = 956, composed of 599 and 357 for Peruvians and Venezuelans, respectively), considering seven predictors and three types of intergroup attitudes. The main results indicated that contact quality, similarity and social dominance orientation were related to almost all types of attitudes (symbolic threat, realistic threat and liking) toward both immigrant populations, except that similarity and dominance orientation were not associated with realistic threats and liking toward Venezuelans, respectively. The rest of the predictors, contact quantity, generalized trust, political orientation, and right-wing authoritarianism explained three or fewer types of attitudes toward both immigrant communities. We speculated about the reasons why contact quality, similarity and social dominance orientation were associated with more types of attitudes than the rest of the predictors, and the present model’s robustness.