Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

ISSN: 1369-183X (Print) 1469-9451 (Online) Journal homepage: https://tandfonline.com/loi/cjms20

When integration policies shape the impact
of intergroup contact on threat perceptions: amultilevel study across 20 European countries
Eva G. T. Green, Emilio Paolo Visintin, Oriane Sarrasin & Miles Hewstone
To cite this article: Eva G. T. Green, Emilio Paolo Visintin, Oriane Sarrasin & Miles Hewstone(2019): When integration policies shape the impact of intergroup contact on threat perceptions: amultilevel study across 20 European countries, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1550159

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JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIES
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1550159

When integration policies shape the impact of intergroupcontact on threat perceptions: a multilevel study across 20
European countries
Eva G. T. Greena, Emilio Paolo Visintina, Oriane Sarrasina and Miles Hewstoneb,caInstitute of Psychology, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; bDepartment of Experimental
Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; cSchool of Psychology, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW,
Australia
ABSTRACTKEYWORDS

There is ample evidence of the beneﬁcial eﬀects of intergroupcontact in reducing negative attitudes towards immigrants.
Although the valuable role of institutional support, one of theinitial optimal conditions for contact, has been demonstrated, theimpact of actual immigration integration policies, as amanifestation of institutional support, remains unknown. In thecurrent study, we examine how country-level migrant integration
policies, assessed by the MIPEX indicator, shape the relationshipbetween everyday contact and threat perceptions associated toimmigration. Multilevel regression analyses were conducted with
European Social Survey Round 7 data from 20 European countries(N = 32,093 citizens). Everyday contact was related to less symbolicand realistic threat perceptions. Moreover, on the country level,
tolerant policies (a high MIPEX score) were related to higher
everyday contact and lower symbolic threat perceptions.
Conﬁrming that institutional support facilitates the eﬀects ofcontact, a cross-level interaction revealed that the link between
everyday contact and symbolic threat was stronger in high rather
than low MIPEX countries. The pattern of results was partiallyreplicated when contact quality and cross-group friendships wereassessed, though integration policies did not moderate the eﬀects
of these intergroup contact measures. These ﬁndings extend the
body of multilevel contact research and are crucial for application
as they show that integration policies have the potential to guidenational majority members’ perceptions regarding immigrants.

Intergroup contact; symbolicand realistic threat; ESS;MIPEX; multilevel; norms

Introduction
The number of immigrants living in European countries, whether from outside orwithin Europe, is at an all-time high. In 2016, there were over 35 million people
born outside of the EU living in an EU country and over 19 million persons who
had been born in a diﬀerent EU country from the one where they were resident (Eurostat 2017). At the same time, immigration continues to assume prominence in politicaldebates and election campaigns throughout Europe. Depicting the presence and arrival
CONTACT Eva G.T. Greeneva.green@unil.ch
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1550159.
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

2

E. G. GREEN ET AL.

of immigrants as a threat to national majority population has gained rightwing populist
movements and parties support over the last two decades across many European
countries. Indeed, both realistic and symbolic threats have been associated with immigrants (e.g. Riek, Mania, and Gaertner 2006; Stephan and Renfro 2002). Realistic ormaterial threat perceptions derive from anticipated competition between immigrants
and the national majority for political power and for tangible, limited resources, suchas jobs and housing as well as from suspicions that immigrants are taking unjustiﬁed
advantage of welfare beneﬁts and commit more crimes than the national majority. Ina zero-sum conception, a gain for immigrants is a loss for the majority (Esses,
Jackson, and Armstrong 1998). Symbolic threat, in turn, arises from supposed diﬀerences in culture and traditions as well as conﬂicting values, and is based on the fearof losing intangible resources. Immigrants are seen to challenge the worldview of thenational majority. Threat perceptions – both realistic and symbolic – then foster prejudice towards and discrimination of immigrants (see Pereira, Vala, and Costa-Lopes
2010; Schlueter and Scheepers 2010).
Drawing on intergroup contact theory, we take a multilevel perspective simultaneously
examining how everyday encounters with immigrants and country-level immigration
integration policies inﬂuence the national majority members’ threat perceptions associated to immigrants. There is ample evidence that intergroup contact relates to improved
immigration attitudes, notably through reduced threat perceptions (e.g. Pettigrew et al.
2007). As institutional support plays a particularly important role in facilitating the beneﬁcial eﬀects of contact (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006), it should shape the impact of contact
and individuals’ attitudes towards immigration. Tolerant integration policies – representing institutional support – thus have the potential to both promote contact with immigrants and alleviate threat perceptions associated with immigration. In addition,
tolerant policies should reinforce the threat-reducing eﬀects of contact. Understanding
these mechanisms is thereby crucial for furthering prejudice reduction and the maintenance of social cohesion. Regardless of policy coordination across Europe, in particular EU
member states, countries vary in the measures they take to integrate immigrants such asaccess to nationality, civic political rights, labour market mobility, or anti-discrimination(Huddleston et al. 2017). Some countries are more, some less inclusive in their integrationof immigrants. Implemented immigrant integration policies within a country convey its
institutional stance concerning treatment of immigrants and provide normative cues tothe national majority on appropriate ways of thinking about and encountering immigrants(e.g. Green and Staerklé 2013; Pettigrew et al. 2007). Thus the policy contexts in which
individuals are embedded impact their attitudes towards immigration, notably theirthreat perceptions.
Despite the ostensible importance of support by institutions recognised from the outset
of intergroup contact research, to our knowledge, there is no systematic evidence on therole of national integration policies to support this claim. With the European Social Survey
ESS Round 7 data, the current paper provides a novel contribution by examining across 20
European countries how immigrant integration policies shape intergroup contact, symbolic and realistic threat perceptions as well as their relationship (see also Meuleman
et al. 2019; for a broader conceptual model of the ESS module see Heath et al. 2019 introducing this Special Issue).

JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIES

3Intergroup contact and reduced threat perceptions
Over 60 years of research has been inspired by the postulation that positive interactions
with outgroup members engender prejudice reduction (Allport 1954; Hewstone andSwart 2011; Pettigrew and Tropp 2006). Conﬁrming this core assumption of intergroupcontact research, positive encounters with immigrants have been shown to alleviate
anti-immigrant views through reduced symbolic and material threats that members of
the national majority associate with immigration (e.g. Aberson 2015; Pettigrew et al.
2007; Tausch et al. 2007). Initially Allport (1954) suggested that equal status between
groups, common goals, cooperation and institutional support were necessary conditions
for contact to improve outgroup attitudes. Though a comprehensive meta-analysis hasrevealed that these conditions are not a prerequisite (Pettigrew and Tropp 2006), in particular two of these optimal conditions – equal status between groups and institutional
support – are crucial when examining the threat-reducing eﬀect of intergroup contact
among immigrants and national majority members.
While immigrants may have a legal status allowing them to reside in the receiving
country (though even this is not the case for so-called irregular immigrants), they do
not have the same civic rights as those with citizenship. Moreover, diﬀerences insocio-economic status between immigrants and the national majority are commonplace.
Such status diﬀerences can be detrimental for the development of cross-group friendships (Pettigrew, 1997), and thus close, high-quality contacts between the dominant,national majority members and subordinate immigrants can be diﬃcult to achieve(see Dixon, Durrheim, and Tredoux 2005). Casual everyday interactions in the publicsphere (e.g. in public transport, in the street, in local shops) favoured by cohabitation
are, in turn, more frequent. For this reason, the current study focuses on the impactof everyday contacts on symbolic and material threat perceptions associated with immigration (for threat perceptions as antecedents of opposition to immigration e.g. Gorodzeisky and Semyonov 2019). Exposure to and mundane interactions with immigrants ineveryday life can allow members of the majority to disconﬁrm the supposed threats.
Though quality of contact (e.g. close and personal contact such as friendships) is particularly eﬀective for reducing prejudice (e.g. Binder et al. 2009; Davies et al. 2011 fora meta-analysis), quantity of contact (i.e. frequency of encounters) also relates toreduced prejudice (Islam and Hewstone 1993; Voci and Hewstone 2003) and threat perceptions (Curseu, Stoop, and Schalk 2007; Tausch et al. 2007). Therefore, experiencing
everyday interactions with immigrants should relate to reduced symbolic and material
threat perceptions (H1).
Yet, unlike the fairly straightforward positive appraisal of cross-group friendships,
everyday encounters can be experienced as agreeable or disagreeable (for the distinction
between positive and negative intergroup contact see, for example, Barlow et al. 2012).
The appraisal of everyday contacts may also be inﬂuenced by other factors, notably
norms. Indeed Allport (1954, 281) assumed that the eﬀect of contact ‘ … is greatly
enhanced if this contact is sanctioned by institutional supports (i.e. by law, custom, or
local atmosphere) … ’. Therefore when interpreting everyday interactions, people
should be sensitive to the surrounding normative setting, deﬁned by institutions. The
meta-analysis by Pettigrew and Tropp (2006) suggests that, compared to other optimal
conditions, institutional support is particularly important in facilitating the beneﬁcial

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E. G. GREEN ET AL.

eﬀects of intergroup contact. We examine how institutional support shapes everyday
contact, perceptions of threat, as well as their relationship.
Integration policies as institutional support
The surrounding normative environment conveys appropriate ways to think about anddeal with immigration (Crandall et al. 2002; Green and Staerklé 2013; Guimond, de la
Sablonnière, and Nugier 2014; Pettigrew 2006). Normative information can take institutionalised forms reiﬁed and communicated through policies and legislation, by politicians,
policy makers, and heads of organisations (e.g. companies, schools). Integration policies
convey norms, or institutional support, that express governmental orientation andaction toward cultural diversity in society, and thereby orient people’s views regarding
immigration (see also Schlueter et al. 2019). Countries diﬀer in the way they deal withimmigration, recognise immigrant minorities, and their level of inclusion and participation in society (e.g. Berry and Sam 2013; Bourhis et al. 1997). Guimond and colleagues(2013) showed that assimilationist vs. multiculturalist integration policies of countries
aﬀect perceived integration norms, which further inﬂuence attitudes towards these policies
and immigrants in general. Indeed support for assimilation was related to negative immigration attitudes, whereas support for multiculturalism was related to positive immigration attitudes. This ﬁnding suggests that people are aware of and guided by integration
policies. Prior multilevel research has demonstrated the impact of country-level policies
on immigration attitudes. For example, in a study across 27 European countries, Schlueter,
Meuleman, and Davidov (2013) found that tolerant integration policies, assessed with the
Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX www.mipex.eu; Huddleston et al. 2017), wererelated to reduced threat perceptions (see also Baur, Green, and Helbling 2016 for comparable relationships between regional-level integration policies, immigration attitudes
and right-wing voting propensity in Switzerland). In a similar vein, Weldon (2006)
found, across 15 European countries, that legislation deﬁning citizenship in ethnic
terms – involving for example shared ancestry requirements for citizenship – wasrelated to intolerance toward immigrants and ethnic minorities. Therefore, in thecurrent study, we expect less symbolic and material threat perceptions in countries withtolerant, rather than less tolerant, integration policies conveying institutional support(H2).
Whether integration policies encourage intergroup contact must also be considered.
Tolerant integration policies can support encounters between national majority
members and immigrants, whereas segregation policies, as an extreme example, set institutional barriers that curb contact. There is evidence of the impact of subjective perceptions of institutional support on interracial contact in educational settings (Pettigrew
and Tropp 2011; for a recent example Tropp et al. 2016): when perceiving that teachers,
school administrators or peers value positive intergroup relations, children and adolescents seek out interracial contact and develop more positive interracial attitudes (seehowever, Molina and Wittig 2006). The actual normative setting in which individuals
are embedded has an impact too (see Christ et al. 2014; Sarrasin et al. 2012; van Assche
et al. 2017). Although contact research has shown the valuable impact of institutional
support, the impact of immigration integration policies has yet to be demonstrated. We
expect that in countries with tolerant integration policies, more everyday contact with

JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIES

5

immigrants is sought (H3). Insofar as everyday contact is expected to predict reduced
symbolic and material threat perceptions, tolerant integration policies should relate to
reduced threat perceptions indirectly through increased everyday contact.
Moreover, in addition to direct eﬀects, the moderating role of country-level integration
policies has been evidenced previously. For example, Kauﬀ and colleagues (2013) foundwith ESS Round 4 data from 23 countries that inclusive integration policies, assessedwith MIPEX, reinforced the relationship between authoritarian ideologies and anti-immigration attitudes. The authors argued that individuals endorsing authoritarian ideologies
feel threatened in settings with inclusive integration policies that conﬂict with their personal ideologies, which further heightens their negative stance towards immigration.
Relatedly, Ariely (2012) examined the frequently evidenced positive relationshipbetween national identiﬁcation and anti-immigration attitudes. He found that lenient citizenship policies (tapped with both citizenship legislation and the Access to nationality
sub-index of the MIPEX) reduced and even reversed the relationship between national
identiﬁcation and negative immigration attitudes (see also Pehrson, Vignoles, andBrown 2009; Visintin, Green, and Sarrasin, 2017).
Our focus here is on how integration policies shape the relationship between everyday
contact and threat perceptions. Exposure to immigrants via everyday interactions should
be interpreted more benevolently in tolerant and lenient than in intolerant and strict
policy contexts (see also Kende, Phalet, et al. 2017). Based on Allport’s (1954) key assumptionthat the eﬀect of contact is enhanced when sanctioned by institutional support, we expectthat in contexts with more tolerant integration policies, the negative relationships between
everyday contact and symbolic and material threat perceptions will be reinforced (H4).
Evidence in support of this moderation hypothesis has been found, for example, in acontact intervention study aiming to improve anti-Roma attitudes among university students in Hungary where the contact intervention had a stronger prejudice-reducing eﬀect
when institutional norms were perceived as tolerant (Kende, Tropp, and Lantos 2017).
To our knowledge the current study is the ﬁrst to examine how institutional support in
the form of country-level integration policies shapes both the level of everyday intergroupcontact and its impact on perceived threat. Until now we have reasoned that experiences ofeveryday contact, which may be of mixed valence, are particularly prone to the surrounding
normative context of which institutional support is one manifestation. While the focus of
the current paper is on everyday intergroup contact, in additional analyses we also considered contact quality and intergroup friendships. Indeed, it is plausible that our argumentation around the role of institutional support extends to positive facets of intergroupcontact. We test the four hypotheses enumerated above across 20 European countries forboth symbolic and realistic threat perceptions, without a priori expectations concerning
diﬀerences between the two forms of threat.1 The key concept and predictor of thecurrent study, institutional support, is assessed through the MIPEX index.

MethodSampleWe used data from 20 out of the 21 countries participating in the European Social Survey
ESS Round 7. Israel was excluded from the sample as it is not on the European continent

6

E. G. GREEN ET AL.

and there is no MIPEX index for the country. We analyzed data of respondents who wereover 18 years and held citizenship of the country of data collection. The ﬁnal sample
included 32,093 respondents (52.9% female, Mage = 49.71, SD = 17.75) after using listwise
deletion of observations with missing values (for all the variables, missing values were lessthan 2%).
Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for symbolic and realistic threat perceptions,intergroup contact and the MIPEX index by country. We used design weights (dweight)
for all descriptive and multilevel analyses.
Symbolic threat, realistic threat and intergroup contact
The dependent variables, symbolic threat and realistic threat, were measured by three
items each. For symbolic threat, the questions were: ‘Would you say that [country’s] cultural life is generally undermined or enriched by people coming to live here from othercountries?’ (response scale ranging from 0 [cultural life undermined] to 10 [cultural life
enriched]); ‘Is [country] made a worse or a better place to live by people coming to live
here from other countries?’ (0 = worse place to live; 10 = better place to live); ‘Do you
think the religious beliefs and practices in [country] are generally undermined or enrichedby people coming to live here from other countries?’ (0 = religious beliefs and practices
undermined; 10 = religious beliefs and practices enriched). Answers were reverse-coded
so that higher values represent greater threat perceptions and averaged to create a 3item composite score of symbolic threat (Cronbach’s α = .79, αs by country from .69 to.85, M = 4.81, SD = 1.94).
Table 1. Number of respondents, MIPEX, mean scores (and standard deviations) of everyday contact,
symbolic threat and realistic threat, and correlations of everyday contact with symbolic threat and withrealistic threat, for each country under investigation.
CountryN

MIPEX

M (SD)
Everydaycontact

Austria AU
Belgium BE
Czech Republic CZ
Denmark DK
Estonia EE
Finland FI
France FR
Germany DE
Hungary HU
Ireland IE
Lithuania LT
Netherlands NL
Norway NO
Poland PL
Portugal PT
Slovenia SI
Spain ES
Sweden SE
Switzerland CH
United Kingdom
UK

1572
1521
1633
1340
1469
1915
1703
2714
1379
2034
1777
1677
1256
1414
1143
1090
1677
1608
1157
2014

48
70
45
59
49
71
54
63
46
51
38
61
69
43
80
48
61
80
46
56

4.72 (1.95)
4.75 (2.04)
3.65 (1.97)
4.98 (1.90)
4.16 (2.19)
3.99 (1.92)
4.76 (2.00)
5.09 (1.93)
3.43 (2.18)
4.64 (2.07)
3.61 (2.24)
4.96 (1.87)
5.25 (1.77)
2.18 (1.74)
3.80 (2.13)
4.40 (2.19)
4.53 (2.25)
5.86 (1.53)
4.94 (1.86)
5.12 (1.88)

M (SD)
Symbolic
threatM (SD)
Realistic
threatrContact –Symbolic threat

5.44 (2.01)
5.01 (1.75)
5.99 (1.67)
4.51 (1.99)
4.92 (1.86)
3.91 (1.74)
5.18 (2.00)
4.34 (1.86)
5.36 (1.83)
4.90 (1.90)
5.02 (1.72)
4.60 (1.52)
4.60 (1.83)
4.43 (1.76)
5.19 (2.01)
5.10 (1.91)
4.68 (1.84)
3.48 (1.81)
4.53 (1.72)
5.38 (2.20)

6.23 (1.83)
6.06 (1.69)
6.49 (1.65)
5.41 (1.56)
5.06 (1.56)
5.49 (1.52)
5.59 (1.66)
5.29 (1.54)
6.51 (1.82)
5.84 (1.93)
5.49 (1.63)
5.78 (1.42)
5.35 (1.40)
5.48 (1.66)
5.93 (1.91)
5.65 (1.61)
6.11 (1.74)
4.73 (1.60)
5.56 (1.48)
5.72 (1.89)−.21***−.28***−.04−.16***−.06*−.25***−.24***−.18***.06*−.11***−.06*−.19***−.12***−.16***−.22***−.18***−.20***−.21***−.16***−.14***r
Contact –Realistic threat−.15***−.16***−.07**−.09***−.10***−.10***−.12***−.12***−.03−.08***−.07**−.11***−.05−.14***−.11***−.12***−.13***−.16***−.05−.06**

Note: Everyday contact ranged from 1 to 7. Symbolic and realistic threat ranged from 0 to 10. *p < .05. **p < .01.
***p ≤ .001.

JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIES

7

For realistic threat, the questions were: ‘Would you say that people who come to live
here generally take jobs away from workers in [country], or generally help to create
new jobs?’ (0 = take away jobs; 10 = create new jobs); ‘Most people who come to live
here work and pay taxes. They also use health and welfare services. On balance, do you
think people who come here take out more than they put in or put in more than theytake out?’ (0 = generally take out more; 10 = generally put in more); ‘Are [country]’s
crime problems made worse or better by people coming to live here from other countries?’(0 = crime problems made worse; 10 = crime problems made better). Answers were reverse
coded so that higher values represent greater threat perceptions and a 3-item composite
score of realistic threat was computed (α= .71, αs by country from .56 to .82, M = 5.68,
SD = 1.72).2
The key individual-level predictor of threat perceptions, quantity of everyday contact,
was assessed with a single question ‘How often do you have any contact with people
who are of a diﬀerent race or ethnic group from most [country] people when you
are out? This could be on public transport, in the street, in shops or in the neighbourhood.’ Response scale ranged from 1 (less than once a month) to 7 (every day) (M = 4.48,
SD = 2.14).
In additional analyses contact quality and cross-group friendship measures were
employed as indicators of positive contact. The quality of contact measure assessed thevalence of [quantity of] contact, ‘Thinking about this contact, in general how bad orgood is it?’ (from 0 = extremely bad to 10 = extremely good; N = 27,333, M = 6.71 SD =1.96). Note that the N of analyses using contact quality was drastically reduced as thisitem was skipped in the interview for respondents who indicated having no contact.
The question ‘Do you have any close friends who are of a diﬀerent race or ethnic groupfrom most [country] people?’ (1 = Yes, several, 2 = Yes, a few, 3 = No, none at all,reverse-coded to denote positive contact; N = 32,046, M = 2.38, SD = 0.71) assessedcross-group friendships. Given the item wording, however, the cross-group friendshipmeasure can be considered to tap both contact quantity and quality.
Individual-level controls
To account for other antecedents of threat perceptions and contact, and for compositional
diﬀerences across countries, we controlled for a number of individual-level characteristics,
in addition to gender and age (Ceobanu and Escandell 2010). Respondents’ subjective
income was assessed with the question ‘Which of the descriptions on this card comesclosest to how you feel about your household’s income nowadays?’, with a response
scale from 1 (living comfortably on present income) to 4 ( ﬁnding it very diﬃcult on
present income). Answers were reverse coded so that higher values reﬂect higher subjective
income (M = 3.11, SD = 0.80). Respondents indicated their education in years (M = 13.11
years, SD = 3.91; range from 0 to 50, with outlier values above the mean plus 3 standard
deviations replaced by the cutoﬀ value). They indicated their religiosity by answering thequestion ‘Regardless of whether you belong to a particular religion, how religious would
you say you are?’ (0 = not religious at all; 10 = very religious). On average, religiosity wasmoderate (M = 4.28, SD = 3.02). For perceived diversity in the neighbourhood, we considered the question ‘How would you describe the area where you currently live?’ (1 =An area where almost nobody is of a diﬀerent race or ethnic group from most [country]

8

E. G. GREEN ET AL.

people; 3 = Many people are of a diﬀerent race or ethnic group) (M = 1.66, SD = 0.68).
Immigration background was assessed via place of birth of parents of respondents. If
one or both parents were born abroad then the respondent was considered to have an
immigration background (12.6% of respondents).
Finally, due to the normative nature of integration policies, to ensure that their impact
did not reﬂect compositional eﬀects of individual-level conservative vs. progressive ideology, we considered the six-item Schwartz conservation value scale (Schwartz et al. 2001).3
Respondents assessed their resemblance (1 = very much like me 6 = not at all like me) withthe following gender-matched descriptions of a ﬁctitious person: ‘It is important to her/
him to live in secure surroundings. She/he avoids anything that might endanger her
safety’, ‘It is important to her/him that the government ensures her/his safety against all
threats. She/he wants the state to be strong so it can defend its citizens’, ‘She/he believes
that people should do what they’re told. She/he thinks people should follow rules at all
times, even when no-one is watching’, ‘It is important to her/him to be humble andmodest. She/he tries not to draw attention to herself’, ‘It is important to her/him always
to behave properly. She/he wants to avoid doing anything people would say is wrong’,and ‘Tradition is important to her/him. She/he tries to follow the customs handed
down by her/his religion or her/his family’. Responses were reverse-coded and averaged
to create a composite score of conservative values (α = .70, αs by country from .62 to.76, M = 4.34, SD = 0.81).
Country-level variables
We used the 2014 Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX, www.mipex.eu; Huddleston
et al. 2017) to assess immigrant integration policies. MIPEX is a country-level index of
immigrant integration policies that simultaneously considers 167 policy indicators fromeight policy domains (i.e. healthcare, education, political participation, labour market
mobility, anti-discrimination laws, permanent residence, access to nationality, family
reunion). The index ranges from 0 (exclusive) to 100 (inclusive).
In addition to MIPEX, we controlled for other country-level characteristics known toshape immigration attitudes. Past multilevel research has demonstrated diﬀerent eﬀects
of immigrant presence: On the one hand, there is evidence that immigrant presence provides contact opportunities, thereby improving people’s attitudes towards immigration, on
the other hand immigrant presence has been shown to relate to exclusionary immigration
attitudes (see Pottie-Sherman and Wilkes 2015 for a meta-analysis). To account for thepresence of immigrants, we controlled for country-level immigrant ratio and immigrant
ratio change. To tap into immigration from non-EU and low-income countries, typicallydebated in Western receiving countries, we considered immigrant ratios of 2015 (based onUnited Nations, 2017) excluding immigrants coming from high-income Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The immigrant ratio change
score was calculated by subtracting the 2010 immigrant ratio from the 2015 immigrant
ratio.
Insofar as economic scarcity has been related to people’s anti-immigrant attitudes(Scheepers, Gijsberts, and Coenders 2002), we also controlled for country-level economic
well-being with unemployment rate and the Gini index, which measures inequality in the
distribution of income (data based on the Central Intelligence Agency, 2017).

JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIES

9

For the estimation of interaction terms, country-level predictors were grand-meancentred.

Results
Both symbolic and realistic threat perceptions as well as everyday intergroup contact
varied signiﬁcantly between countries (ICCs = .081, .064, and .139 respectively; countrylevel residual variance in intercept-only models, symbolic threat = 0.303, SE = 0.106, p= .004 and realistic threat = 0.189, SE = 0.058, p = .001: everyday intergroup contact =0.641, SE = 0.251, p =. 011). A multilevel approach simultaneously testing the impact ofindividual- and contextual-level predictors was thus indicated (Hox 2010). We performed
multilevel regression analyses using maximum likelihood estimations with robust standard errors MLR (Mplus 6), and ﬁrst included variables in the model step by step. As
cross-level interactions were modelled, when used as a predictor, intergroup contact
was centred at the group mean (Enders and Toﬁghi 2007). Supplemental online Tables
1–3 present the step-by-step model building including the model ﬁts (bottom panel oftables) and regression coeﬃcients for individual and country-level predictors (top panelof tables) for symbolic threat, realistic threat and intergroup contact respectively. To
test our hypotheses, in Table 2 we summarise the ﬁndings for the three variables inmodels including the main predictors and the control variables (see table note for symbolicthreat – everyday contact random slope).
Conﬁrming the threat-reducing eﬀects of intergroup contact (H1), everyday contact
was associated with both lower symbolic and lower realistic threat perceptions. The correlation patterns in 19 of the 20 countries studied are in line with this ﬁnding (see Table 1;in Hungary the link between contact and symbolic threat perceptions was positive). In
support of the hypothesis that institutional support alleviates feelings of threat (H2),
Table 2. Final multilevel models for symbolic and realistic threat and intergroup contact(unstandardised regression coeﬃcients, standard errors in parentheses).
Symbolic threat a
Est. (SE)Intercept
5.81 (0.24)***Main predictors
Intergroup contact−0.08 (0.01)***
MIPEX−0.02 (0.01)*
Contact x MIPEX−0.003 (0.001)**
Individual level controls
Age0.002 (0.002)
Gender (Male = 1, Female = 0)0.04 (0.04)
Years of education−0.10 (0.01)***
Immigration background−0.46 (0.08)***
Subjective income−0.26 (0.03)***
Religiosity−0.04 (0.01)***Conservative values
0.31 (0.03)***
Diversity in neighbourhood−0.02 (0.03)
Country-level controls
Unemployment−0.02 (0.01)
Gini
0.003 (0.02)
Immigrant ratio−0.01 (0.04)
Immigrant ratio D
0.02 (0.02)
aRandom slope (symbolic threat on contact) = 0.002 (0.001), p = .04.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p ≤ .001.

Realistic threat
Est. (SE)Intergroup contact
Est. (SE)7.00 (0.17)***3.40 (0.34)***−0.05 (0.01)***−0.01 (0.01)––
0.03 (0.005)***–−0.002 (0.001)−0.06 (0.04)−0.07 (0.005)***−0.42 (0.08)***−0.26 (0.02)***−0.04 (0.005)***0.20 (0.03)***0.004 (0.02)−0.02 (0.002)***0.02 (0.03)
0.07 (0.005)***0.26 (0.08)***0.09 (0.02) ***−0.01 (0.01)−0.11 (0.02) ***0.86 (0.08)***0.02 (0.02)−0.03 (0.02)−0.002 (0.03)−0.03 (0.01)*−0.02 (0.02)−0.03 (0.02)
0.13 (0.03)***−0.05 (0.02)*

10

E. G. GREEN ET AL.

symbolic threat perceptions were reduced in higher MIPEX countries. We did not,however, ﬁnd signiﬁcant evidence for this prediction for realistic threat.
Moreover, as hypothesised (H3), there were more experiences of everyday contact inhigher MIPEX countries (note that as an outcome variable, everyday contact is notcentred). This ﬁnding is in line with prior research demonstrating that institutional
support fosters intergroup contact. No indirect eﬀect through everyday contact tothreat perceptions occurred, as these constructs are unrelated on the country level.
We also found support for Allport’s (1954) initial argument that institutional support
facilitates the eﬀects of everyday contact (conﬁrming H4). Indeed, a cross-level interaction
between everyday contact and MIPEX predicting symbolic threat perceptions was found.
The decomposition of the interaction showed that the negative association between intergroup contact and symbolic threat perceptions was stronger in countries with a high
MIPEX (+1 SD, b = −0.11, SE = 0.01, p < .001) than in countries with a low MIPEX (−1SD, b = −0.05, SE = 0.02, p = .008; see Figure 1). Figure 2 further depicts the correlation
between everyday contact and symbolic threat by country as function of MIPEX. We
did not ﬁnd support for H4 for realistic threat (the relation between everyday contact
and realistic threat did not vary across countries, therefore we did not pursue withtesting cross-level interactions, see Model 3 in Supplemental online Table 2).
The individual-level control variables were also related to threat perceptions andcontact. Conservation values were related to higher symbolic and realistic threat. Immigration background, higher education, subjective income as well as religiosity, in turn, wereassociated with less symbolic and material threat perceptions. Moreover, younger respondents, those holding less conservation values, with an immigration background, higher
education, higher subjective income, and living in neighbourhood they considereddiverse had more everyday contact.
None of the country-level controls were related to symbolic threat perceptions. In linewith an intergroup contact rationale, realistic threat perceptions were reduced in countries
with an increased immigration rate (note that this eﬀect was not found in the step-by-step
6.5

6

Low MIPEX (-1SD)

5.5

High MIPEX (+1SD)5

4.5
Low quanty of contact (-1SD) High quanty of contact (+1SD)

Figure 1. Decomposition of cross-level interaction: The relationship between everyday contact andsymbolic threat as a function of MIPEX.

JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIES

11

Figure 2. Correlations between everyday contact and symbolic threat by MIPEX (See Table 1 forcountry codes).

model building reported in the Supplemental online Table 2). Moreover, supporting theintergroup contact reasoning that presence of immigrants provides opportunities forcontact, everyday contact was greater in countries with high rather than low immigrant
ratio (Wagner et al. 2006). However, supporting an intergroup threat approach (e.g.
Scheepers, Gijsberts, and Coenders 2002 on ethnic competition theory) that increase inimmigration fosters opposition to immigration, everyday contact was lower in countries
that had experienced an increase in immigration. The Gini index and unemployment
rate were unrelated to everyday contact. Importantly, inclusion of country-level controls
in the models did not alter the eﬀects of MIPEX and the cross-level interaction (see Supplemental online Table 1 Models 4a and 4b for symbolic threat and Supplemental online
Table 3 Models 2a and 2b for everyday contact).
Additional analyses
In addition to integration policies predicting everyday contact and moderating its eﬀects, itis plausible that they predict positive contact experiences and their eﬀects. Thus, inadditional analyses we reran the main models presented in Table 2 using both thequality of contact and cross-group friendship as the contact measure (ICCs = .067 and.058 respectively; country-level residual variance in intercept-only models: Qualityof contact = 0.262, SE = 0.111, p = .019 and cross-group friendships = 0.029, SE = 0.01,
p = .001).
In support of H1, unsurprisingly, both contact quality and cross-group friendships were
negatively related to symbolic (b = −0.30, SE = 0.01, p < .001; b = −0.43, SE = 0.04, p < .001
respectively) as well as realistic (b = −0.22, SE = 0.01, p < .001; b = −0.32, SE = 0.04, p< .001 respectively) threat perceptions. As in the main analyses, MIPEX predicted symbolic threat perceptions (in line with H2; b = −0.02, SE = 0.01, p = .041; b = −0.02, SE =0.01, p = .043 respectively when contact quality and cross-group friendship were included
as predictor in the model), but not realistic threat perceptions (b = −0.01, SE = 0.01, p= .178; b = −0.01, SE = 0.01, p = .129 respectively). In addition, supporting H3, crossgroup friendships were more frequent in countries with tolerant integration policies(b = 0.004, SE = 0.002, p = .007; this was not the case for quality of contact, b = 0.01,

12

E. G. GREEN ET AL.

SE = 0.01, p = .350). The cross-level moderation hypothesis (H4) did not receive support
in these additional analyses (ps ≥ .379).

Discussion
The main argument of this paper is that, by conveying tolerant ways of thinking about
cultural diversity and immigration, inclusive integration policies foster everyday contact
with immigrants, alleviate national majority members’ associations of immigrationrelated threat, and reinforce the threat-reducing eﬀect of everyday contact. Although
prior research has shown that integration policies shape perceptions regarding immigration (Guimond et al. 2013; Kauﬀ et al. 2013; Schlueter, Meuleman, and Davidov 2013), thispaper provided a novel contribution by examining how policies shape the frequency of
everyday contact and moderate the relationship between contact and anti-immigration
attitudes, here threat perceptions. As predicted, we found that in countries with inclusive
integration policies (i.e. a high MIPEX score) everyday encounters with immigrants weremore frequent and subjective perceptions of symbolic (but not realistic) threat were lower.
In addition, while contact was generally related to lower symbolic threat perceptions, thethreat-reducing impact of everyday interactions was stronger in countries with relatively
more inclusive integration policies than in countries with less inclusive policies (i.e. a lower
MIPEX score).
These ﬁndings are important for intergroup contact theory, as we addressed the role ofinstitutional support, the most crucial of the initial optimal conditions for contact outlined
by Allport in 1954 (see Pettigrew and Tropp 2006), by means of country-level immigrant
integration policies. Previously mainly the impact of subjective perceptions of institutional
support has been studied, whereas our study suggests that the actual policy context has thepower to facilitate contact and to reinforce the beneﬁcial eﬀects of contact. Beyond theimpact of integration policies, these ﬁndings also suggest that more generally the normative setting in which individuals are embedded should be accounted for when examining
immigration attitudes in survey research (Green and Staerklé 2013).
While on the individual-level everyday intergroup encounters predicted reduced realistic threat perceptions (e.g. seeing immigrants taking away jobs from natives), we foundthat immigrant integration policies were unrelated to realistic threat, and these policies
did not moderate the relation between everyday intergroup contact and realistic threat
perceptions. As the mean level of realistic threat perceptions was, if anything, slightly
greater than that of symbolic threat, both types of threats are present in the minds ofnational majorities. It is possible that tolerant and inclusive policies address more adequately symbolic rather than material concerns. In fact, some of the domains of inclusiveness in integration policy, such as access to healthcare, may even trigger the very concerns
composing realistic threat, fear of losing out on healthcare if immigrants are favoured overthe national majority. This may explain why tolerant integration policies were unrelated torealistic threat perceptions.
Additional analyses were run with contact quality and cross-group friendship ascontact measures. While the pattern of results was largely replicated, two diﬀerencesmust be noted. Tolerant policies were unrelated to increased contact quality, suggestingthat contact quantity in broad terms (both frequency of everyday contact and numberof cross-group friendships) is particularly sensitive to the surrounding normative

JOURNAL OF ETHNIC AND MIGRATION STUDIES

13

context (here depicted with integration policies). Moreover, integration policies did notmoderate the relation between contact quality or cross-group friendships and symbolicthreat perceptions. Thus integration policies seem to reinforce the eﬀect of superﬁcial
everyday contact, but not the eﬀects of unequivocally positively appraised contact experiences, suggesting that such experiences are associated to reduced prejudice and threat perceptions irrespective of the normative climate. However, whether superﬁcial everyday
contact has a prejudice-reducing impact in the ﬁrst place will depend on the appraisalof the interaction experience (Thomsen and Raﬁqi 2017; see also Barlow et al., 2012,
Study 1).
In the following paragraphs, we discuss some caveats concerning the results of thecurrent study and oﬀer suggestions for future research. First, while the reasoning of
the paper was around encounters with immigrants and threat perceptions associatedto immigration, the operationalisation of everyday contact referred to individuals of‘diﬀerent race or ethnic group from most’. Despite this mismatch in the referredtarget groups, we assume, and the correlation patterns suggest, that in the context of
the ESS immigration module, respondents associated both intergroup contact andthreat questions to immigrants. Indeed, a study conducted in Germany (Asbrocket al., 2014) demonstrated that individuals tend to associate immigrant groups
present both in their country and regions of residence when exposed to the genericnotion of immigrant. Thus, while it is plausible that respondents had in mind immigrantgroups present in their country when reporting on frequency of contact and perceptionsof threat, the result patterns should be replicated in future research with measures withmatching target groups.
Second, we examined the impact of a general exclusive vs. inclusive immigration policy
indicator in reinforcing intergroup contact eﬀects. A country may, however, be inclusive insome aspects (e.g. equal access to education) and exclusive in other aspects of integration
policy (e.g. insuﬃcient anti-discrimination legislation). Future research should matchpolicy content and attitudinal outcomes, for example by examining how existing anti-discrimination legislation aﬀects the relationship between intergroup contact experiences andindividuals’ support for anti-racism laws. Importantly, further understanding of how
actual implementation of policy, such as anti-discrimination legislation, aﬀects attitudes
towards immigration is needed. This will allow evidence-based planning of eﬀective interventions to reduce prejudice and discrimination on a more local level.
Third, in the current study we focused on the perspective of national majorities, the citizens of the country of data collection. Monitoring how integration policies shape the intergroup contact experiences with national majorities among immigrant minorities would be
a fruitful future research avenue. Recent research on the so-called ‘sedative’ eﬀects ofcontact has argued that when ethnic minorities have positive contact experiences withthe dominant majority, they are less likely to endorse social change (Saguy et al. 2009).
However, integration policies may play a role in this process such that inclusive integration policies counteract possible demobilising eﬀects of positive contact. The recent
work of Kauﬀ and colleagues (2016), using notably ESS Round 1 data, point in the direction of this argument: national majorities’ contact experiences on the country and local
level – a manifestation of a supportive local atmosphere (akin to institutional support)– were related to ethnic minority members’ endorsement of ingroup rights. Thus the normative setting had a mobilising rather than a demobilising eﬀect.

14

E. G. GREEN ET AL.

Finally, as in all cross-sectional studies ﬁrm causal claims are unwarranted. Yet the
impact of intergroup contact on attitudes has been evidenced in experimental and longitudinal research (e.g. Binder et al. 2009; Swart et al. 2011). Public policies, such as inclusive
or exclusive integration policies, reﬂect the stance of both respective institutions, and also
individuals to the extent that citizens participate in policy making by electing representatives. Thus the relationship between migration policies and attitudes must be seen as
mutually reinforcing rather unidirectional (e.g. Gundelach and Manatschal 2017).
Indeed, the examination of micro–macro relations, for example whether individual political attitudes predict immigration policy on the contextual level, would be a fascinating
research endeavour (see Christ et al. 2017; Green et al. 2016).
These limitations aside, the current study provided a novel contribution to the literatureon immigration attitudes by demonstrating the role of immigration integration policy forintergroup contact and threat perceptions. Crucially, this study highlights the responsibilityof policymakers in creating and maintaining tolerant and cohesive, multicultural societies.

Notes
1. Our approach is exploratory concerning eventual diﬀerences between the two forms of threatas prior research has found that eﬀects of contact are similar (Aberson and Gaﬀney 2009;
Tausch et al. 2007) or absent (Velasco Gonzaléz et al. 2008) for both, and in some cases stronger for symbolic (Curseu, Stoop, and Schalk 2007; Tausch, Hewstone, and Roy 2009), while inother cases stronger for material threat perceptions (Pereira et al. 2010).
2. Equivalence of measurement testing – ensuring that eventual diﬀerences in measurement
would not bias substantive conclusions – was performed prior to the creation of these composite scores. Partial scalar invariance was reached (Satorra-Bentler corrected χ2 (254) =1411.11, p < .001; CFI = .942, RMSEA = .072). Note that the intercepts for the ‘crime’ and‘country worse place to live’ items were allowed to vary in a set of countries. In addition,
errors for two symbolic threat items were allowed to correlate.
3. High numbers of missing values (2.26%–25.40%) and the cross-national diﬀerences inmeaning precluded the use of the left-right political orientation continuum.

Disclosure statement
No potential conﬂict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding
This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation [Division 1 grant number
100014_159336 and National Center of Competence in Research nccr – on the move grant
number 51NF40-142020].

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