Majority residents’ perceptions of ‘economic’ and ‘political’ refugees: Psychological processes underlying the flight-reason bias

Abstract

Migrants who flee their home country for economic (vs. political) reasons often elicit more negative responses in receiving countries. We examined psychological processes underlying this flight-reason bias, focusing on majority residents’ perceptions of migration circumstances and their emotional responses. In three preregistered studies (total N = 1394), participants read texts about an individual refugee (Studies 1 and 2) or groups of refugees (Study 3) who fled because of economic versus political reasons. Overall, participants perceived migration as less forced in the economic-flight reason condition. Economic (vs. political) flight reasons also elicited less willingness to accept refugees. Additional analyses suggest that the flight-reason bias was driven by greater perceived control of refugees over emigration (for perceived forcedness), by lower empathy (for willingness to accept refugees) and by lower perceived pre-migration perils (for both outcomes) in the economic-flight reason conditions. We discuss implications for political and humanitarian issues surrounding refugee immigration and integration.