Exploring the link between personality traits and European attitudes towards refugees

Attitudes towards refugees are formed via complex interactions between socioeconomic factors, perceptions of cultural threat and personality traits. Yet despite the widespread social changes the European refugee situation has generated throughout the continent, no previous literature has adequately examined these interactions in that context. This study addressed that gap by testing the relationship between personality traits and European attitudes towards refugees in the context of the European refugee crisis by conducting an ordinal regression analysis of data obtained from online surveys that we distributed in four European countries (N = 6,000).Questions were aligned with descriptors used in the Five Factor model of personality traits and a proxy of the Honesty-Humility trait used in the HEXACO model. Our results indicate that Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Honesty-Humility are negatively associated with refugee prejudice. Findings about Neuroticism, Extraversion, and Conscientiousness are mixed. Moreover, our results revealed that intercultural contact has a positive impact on attitudes towards refugees and that the valence of this contact plays a more significant role than the frequency of contact. Given that attitudes towards refugees have been found to correlate with asylum policy preferences, these discoveries are of considerable value to people working in asylum policy settings, as they provide them with a more nuanced understanding of the factors influencing election results; especially during a period where refugee resettlement is a salient issue.