Threat of Immigrants From Muslim and Christian Orthodox Countries: Is the Authoritarian Reaction to the Threat From Immigrants Moderated by Immigrant Group's Origin?

Previous research showed that even imaginary forms of realistic and symbolic threats to the national group caused by the arrival of immigrants could trigger an authoritarian reaction in the host country. However, as it was evidenced that many Europeans have a negative image of Muslims, the authoritarian reaction may have resulted from the fact that the threatening immigrant group came from Muslim countries. The reported study examined whether a similar reaction would occur if the immigrant-origin group was not stereotypically perceived as threatening (the receiving country was Poland). For this purpose, an experimental study (N = 460) was conducted, in which the threat from Muslim immigrants was contrasted with the threat from the neighbouring Christian Orthodox countries. In the reported study, authoritarian reaction occurred with similar strength for both compared immigrant groups. This suggests the authoritarian reaction to the threat from immigrants is a phenomenon independent of the immigrants' origin.