Italy is increasingly recognised as a migration state. The perceived threat from migrants among the native majority plays a critical role in shaping social tensions and electoral behaviour. During this MPC seminar, a study will be presented drawing on the Intergroup Competition Hypothesis and the Integrated Intergroup Threat Theory to examine the mechanism shaping attitudes towards migrants.

Olga Griaznova will expose how these theories suggest that perceived threat influence individuals’ views of outgroup members. Previous research shows that people often overestimate the share of immigrants in a country, which increases perceived threat and fosters negative attitudes.

The study estimates the effect of corrective statistical information on the share of children born to families with at least one immigrant parent and about its change over the last 25 years on attitudes toward migrants. It relied on data from a large-scale multi-arm survey experiment (n=2000) conducted in Italy in 2024. Participants first estimated the share of children born to immigrant families, and its trend over the past 25 years. One treatment group received accurate information about current share of migrant children, while another received information about the increase in this share over time. After this, all respondents both from the treatment and control groups completed a set of questions measuring different dimensions of attitudes towards migrants corresponding to realistic and symbolic threats. The results show that people tend to resist changing their attitudes towards migrants, even when they are provided with corrective information about objective statistics.