Abstract
Across three studies the current paper unpacks negative attitudes towards migrants in the context of the socio-functional model that binds together the sense of threat, institutional distrust, and conspiratorial thinking. Using a comprehensive multi-country dataset (Study 1) and two longitudinal studies from Slovakia and Czechia (Studies 2 and 3), the paper delves into the roots of anti-migration stances among European citizens. In Study 1 (N = 41,455), we analysed the ESS wave 10 data about conspiracy beliefs, institutional distrust, migration policy preferences, and the sense of threat allegedly posed by migrants. Study 2 (N = 938) shows that, at the between-participants level, conspiracy beliefs about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, institutional distrust and attitudes towards Ukrainian refugees are associated. No clear effects hold at the within-participants level, though. Finally, Study 3 (N = 856) shows that conspiracy mentality – rather than specific conspiracy beliefs about migration – is bidirectionally associated with the sense of threat allegedly posed by the migrants, pointing to conspiratorial thinking as a generalised metacognitive tendency to construe outgroup intentions and actions as malignant. Jointly, the studies explain the logic of anti-migration attitudes as immersed in the socio-functional model in which threat appraisals, conspiratorial thinking and attitudes towards outgroups are intertwined.