Does a Tragic Event Affect Different Aspects of Attitudes toward Immigration?

Heizler (Cohen), Odelia () and Osnat Israeli
Additional contact information
Heizler (Cohen), Odelia: Academic College of Tel-Aviv Yaffo
Osnat Israeli: Ashkelon College

No 16802, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Dramatic events can evoke feelings of compassion, fear, or threat, and can affect public opinion regarding controversial issues. Such an event was the drowning of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi, a Syrian boy whose body washed up on a Turkish shore, and was photographed, producing an iconic image that was seen worldwide. The image evoked empathy and compassion that neuroscience and psychological research associate with a motivation to help. This paper examines the impact of this event on four different aspects of attitudes toward immigration, some of which are more closely linked to pro-social behavior than others. The timing of the European Social Survey in Portugal allowed us to use this tragic event as a natural experiment. Our results show that Kurdi's drowning had a significant effect on emotion-related sentiments, but no such impact was detected on other attitudes. The results suggest that the event did not change the respondents' opinion regarding the possible negative consequences of immigration on the host country's economy, crime level, or culture, nor did it change their perception of the skills required by immigrants. On the other hand, the empathy induced by the tragic event increased their willingness to have a less restrictive immigration policy and their openness to having close social relationships with immigrants.

Keywords: European Social Survey; anti-immigration attitudes; natural experiment; social distance; threat perceptions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F22 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2024-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-int, nep-mac and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published online in: Migration Studies, 07 March 2024

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp16802.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp16802

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().