Anti-refugee attitudes towards Syrian people living in Turkey: Culture dimensions and motivational personal dispositions

Abstract

Syria experienced a civil war that resulted in more than 3.6 million registered Syrian refugees seeking asylum in Turkey as of October 2022. This sociodemographic change has led to tensions between the local population living in Turkey and Syrian refugees, resulting in a social environment characterized by anti-refugee attitudes and intergroup conflicts. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the internalization of Hofstede's culture dimensions by individuals and anti-refugee attitudes and to test the mediating roles of needs for cognition and recognition in this relationship. The sample consisted of 439 (295 women and 144 men) Turkish university students aged between 18 and 31 years (M = 21.47, SD = 2.36). According to the main results, (i) internalization of culture dimensions of long-term orientation, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance predicts the likelihood of endorsing anti-refugee attitudes towards Syrian people living in Turkey and (ii) the need for recognition associated with impression-motivated heuristic thinking mediates the relationship between internalization of culture dimensions of masculinity, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance and anti-refugee attitudes. The results can be addressed by interested parties to reduce negative attitudes of the local population and facilitate the process of refugees' adaptation and sustainable integration into society.