Intergroup friendship, generalized trust and anti-immigrant sentiments: A multilevel analysis of European societies

The literature allows us to assume that both intergroup friendship as generalized social trust will be negatively related to the occurrence of anti-immigrant sentiments. In this paper, we test these assumptions on a European population sample, taking into account the actual level of ethnic diversity in the country. The results show, first of all, that there is a negative relation between ethnic diversity and anti-immigrant sentiments, which renders the hypothesis rather unlikely that immigration should be causally related to the occurrence of anti-immigrant sentiments. In line with expectations, both intergroup friendship and generalized trust are negatively related to anti-immigrant sentiments, and these effects operate independently. Country-level variables like multicultural policies or extreme right voting, were not related at all to the level of anti-immigrant sentiments. Moreover, country-level variables did not moderate the relation between intergroup friendship and generalized trust, on the one hand, and anti-immigrant sentiments, on the other. We close with some observations on how the effects for intergroup friendship and generalized trust on anti-immigrant sentiments may be explained in its social context.status: publishe