Ideological and psychological predictors of host community acculturation strategies toward Syrian immigrants

As international migration has become a lasting social reality, understanding the ideological and psychological processes underlying host community members' acculturation preferences toward immigrants has become increasingly important. Drawing on Social Dominance Theory, this study examined the relationships of social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, political orientation, and religiosity with host community acculturation strategies toward Syrian immigrants and tested the mediating role of perceived threat. The study was conducted with 302 adults in Türkiye. Data were collected using measures of social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, political orientation, religiosity, perceived threat, and host community acculturation strategies and analyzed through Pearson correlation, hierarchical multiple regression, and bootstrap mediation analyses. The findings showed that both social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism were positively associated with rejecting acculturation strategies. Perceived threat was positively associated with rejecting strategies and negatively associated with welcoming strategies. Moreover, social dominance orientation showed a significant indirect association with rejecting strategies through perceived threat, alongside a significant direct association, whereas its association with welcoming strategies emerged only indirectly through perceived threat. Overall, the findings suggest that host community acculturation preferences are better understood within an integrated framework that considers both ideological orientations supporting group-based hierarchies and perceived threat.