October 2016
Jonas Bergmann, Consultant, and 
Hanspeter Wyss, Senior Program Officer, Washington DC, KNOMAD - World
Bank
NEGATIVE BELIEFS AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS IMMIGRANTS THREATEN EFFECTIVE INTEGRATION
The growing scale of human mobility worldwide has rendered immigration a salient topic. Better integration yields significant benefits to migrants, host societies and governments (and even to sending regions) (Cervan-Gil, 2016): Inclusion
facilitates self-sufficiency and human development, which in turn
reduces welfare costs, raises tax income, and improves social cohesion (OECD 2016).
Successful
integration, however, depends partially on the willingness of host
communities to absorb immigrants. This willingness is shaped by beliefs
and attitudes about immigrants that often misrepresent reality. Among
many misperceptions, host societies tend to err by wide margins in their
knowledge of the pace, scale, and impacts of immigration. Even if data
proves different (Ipsos, 2014; GMF 2014), this can elevate a sense of anxiousness and perceived threats.
Such beliefs and feelings complicate integration needlessly for two reasons. First, they directly fuel exclusion, discrimination, and violence that undermine social cohesion, as witnessed in various regions of the world. Second, they can indirectly lead to restrictive policies that obstruct more positive immigration outcomes.
Prejudices
and anxieties surrounding immigrants have recently reached a startling
scale and make new evidence-based action necessary. Policy makers can
learn from recent advances in social psychology: Extensive empirical
evidence shows that fostering contact between natives and immigrants is
an effective tool to increase empathy and mutual understanding. A UNHCR study,
for instance, found that only 20% of Austrians in personal contact with
displaced persons described their experiences as negative, as opposed
to 68% of the rest of society. In the UK, citizens saw those migrants living in their own neighborhoods as most popular (Migration Observatory 2015). This is also in line with observations in recent political referenda or consultations: People in the UK (June 2016) and in Switzerland (February 2014) who live in cities with higher shares of migrants were more favorable toward migration than people in the country-side.
Contact as a Potent Win-Win-Win Tool
A meta-review of 515 experimental studies
involving 250,000 participants in 38 nations confirms that intergroup
contact significantly reduces prejudices and negative emotions. The
synthesis of 50 years of research demonstrates that individuals also
generalize their positive contact experiences to the entire perceived
'outgroup' and even other ethnic groups. Furthermore, contact positively
changes natives' attitudes towards social policies critical to
integration. These findings are confirmed in another meta-review of 123 real-world contact interventions with more than 11,300 participants of different ethnic groups.
Contact
works in direct face-to-face settings, but also in indirect formats,
such as through a friend knowing immigrants, observing how others
interact with, and even reading about or imagining contact with
immigrants. While negative contact in involuntary and threat-producing
encounters can exacerbate prejudices and anxieties, previously experienced positive contact can neutralize these negative effects (Paolini and others, 2014).
BUILDING CONTACT
Thus, while no panacea, contact is a powerful, flexible, and adjustable policy tool for increased trust and reduced anxieties between immigrants and natives that has proven successful in many real-life interventions.
To this end, first,
they should aim to 'tap the untapped', i.e. to map and cater to
existing interest in contact through tailored matchmaking efforts. In
Germany in 2014, for instance, as much as 42% of natives were interested
in getting to know asylum seekers and 66% ready to support them; yet
only 22% were in relevant contact with, while 47% had never met asylum
seekers (Robert Bosch Stiftung, 2014). Established good practices to foster direct contact
include early and equal access to education, language training,
productive activities, and integrative housing, as well creating
platforms for structured intergroup contact.
Second,
prejudices, anxieties, and perceived threats lead to the avoidance of
direct contact. Where strong biases exist, structured direct contact
techniques have proven beneficial. In these settings, it is also
important to ensure that indirect contact is positive, which
may be increased through educational and community interventions,
information campaigns providing accurate data, as well as supportive
public framing and media reporting.
Third, segregation
is often perpetuated by systematic barriers. Institutionalized obstacles
to contact include segregated housing such as large asylum reception
facilities, time spent in isolating reception processes, and constraints
on employment. Such obstacles can (re-)produce detachment on the side
of natives, but also exacerbate impediments on the part of immigrants,
such as linguistic and cultural barriers. These systematic barriers
constitute key entry points for policy makers seeking to break cycles of segregation and alienation.
CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK
With human mobility
likely to increase further, new evidence-based action is needed to
counter surrounding prejudices and anxieties. Building contact between natives and immigrants has a strong empirical track record in improving attitudes and in creating demand for better social policies. Contact can be an effective tool yielding benefits for all stakeholders by providing more fertile ground for integration. The UN has recognized this potential: In the context of the recent UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants,
it has launched a global campaign 'emphasizing direct personal contact'
between natives and newcomers. It is hoped that states and other
stakeholders will follow suit with concrete action.
Co-author is Hanspeter Wyss, Senior Program Officer, KNOMAD, World Bank.
The authors wish to thank Dr. Sylvie Graf, Dr. Stefania Paolini, and
Prof. Dr. Uli Wagner for their helpful comments on an earlier draft.
Civil society organizations like KAMA have an important role to play in building contact between asylum seekers and natives’ (here in Dresden, Germany)
