The Big Five Personality Traits and Attitudes towards Immigrants

Recent research suggests that the Big Five personality traits are important determinants of a wide range of political and social attitudes. In spite of this, the impact of personality traits on attitudes towards immigrants has been unattended in sociological research. On the basis of insights from personality psychology, we extend the sociological approach to immigrant-specific prejudice by analysing the effects of personality using a large and nationally representative sample of the Dutch population. Moreover, we consider personality jointly with situational predictors of attitudes towards immigrants. The results confirm that some personality traits are associated with attitudes towards immigrants, beyond the effect of socio-economic, attitudinal and contact predictors. We conclude that combining insights from sociology and personality psychology in the study of dispositional and situational determinants of attitudes towards immigration is a fruitful avenue for research.