Personality Traits and Common Ingroup Identity: Support for Refugee Policies Among Host Members

Abstract

Türkiye, which has hosted the largest number of refugees in recent years, requires remedial intervention programs to facilitate adaptation and coexistence. The irony of harmony studies that guide these interventions seem incomplete due to limited sample characteristics and a lack of attention to personality traits. Hence, we aimed to explore relationships between personality traits, identification with common ingroup identity, and support for social policies toward refugees by sampling the advantaged majority and the disadvantaged largest minority in Türkiye across two correlational studies (N_total = 772). In Study 1, agreeableness, extraversion, openness, narcissism, and psychopathy were associated with support for positive social policies. On the other hand, neuroticism was linked with support for negative social policies. However, when identification with common ingroup identity was included in the model, the significance of personality traits in almost all models disappeared, indicating that only the prediction of identification with common ingroup identity remained. The findings of Study 2 replicated and extended the previous result by sampling disadvantaged group members. We suggest that it may be more effective to focus on intergroup variables rather than personality traits to strengthen support for refugee policies, as the overall findings pointed out.