Ugandan and British individuals' views of refugees in their countries: An exploratory <scp>mixed‐methods</scp> comparison

Abstract: Using an exploratory mixed‐methods approach, we examined thoughts concerning refugees reported by participants from a non‐Western country, Uganda, and the United Kingdom (total N = 113). We explored whether, due to various sociocultural, political and geographic differences, critical features of refugee migration (e.g., migration forcedness and migration‐related perils) would be viewed differently by Ugandan and UK participants. An inductive qualitative content analysis of responses in an online survey yielded 11 categories with 40 subcategories revealing several similarities between Ugandan and UK participants. For instance, similar proportions of participants from both countries acknowledged refugees' suffering before their migration and the forced nature of refugees' migration. However, we also found that more British than Ugandan participants referred to perils refugees suffer during their journeys, possibly resulting from differences in refugees' migration routes (e.g., crossing other countries, travelling by dilapidated boats, migration duration). Furthermore, Ugandan but not British participants took pride in international praise their country received for its forthcoming treatment of refugees. There were no differences regarding the extent to which Ugandan and British individuals exhibited prejudice towards refugees or experienced threats from refugees. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for refugee integration

Vicarious comparative victimhood: Introducing a framework to illustrate vicariously experienced inequalities in behaviors toward members of victimized groups.

Hellmann J, Schlechter P, Übergünne-Otte L, Rees J, Sandal-Önal E, Zick A. Vicarious comparative victimhood: Introducing a framework to illustrate vicariously experienced inequalities in behaviors toward members of victimized groups. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology. 2023.Building on and extending extant approaches like competitive victimhood, this theoretical contribution introduces a novel framework on vicarious comparative victimhood. When individuals who support others from specific disadvantaged victimized out-groups observe particular unjust treatment of those they support, as compared to other victimized out-groups, they may experience comparative victimhood vicariously. In these cases, social aides supporting discriminated others may identify violations to their firmly held moral beliefs, that is, injunctive, and, arguably to a lesser extent, descriptive antiprejudice norms of treating others equally, regardless of the others’ group membership. We argue in our framework that, depending on the extent to which social aides experience comparative victimhood vicariously, they display different levels of psychological responses that may, at first sight, seem diametrically opposed like frustration or reactance. Which kind of psychological response social aides exhibit largely depends on moderators on the individual level concerning the social aides’ personality and on the context level. Vicarious experiences of comparative victimhood may have severe behavioral consequences for the social aides’ efforts, possibly even leading to discontinuation of their efforts in supporting others from disadvantaged victimized groups. In turn, such consequences may jeopardize societal cohesion and social peace. We outline specific testable research propositions, mainly by exemplifying this concept with references to social aides who work with and support refugees from different regions of origin, with the hopes of stimulating future empirical work on vicarious comparative victimhood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved

Ugandan and British individuals' views of refugees in their countries: An exploratory comparison

Hellmann J, Übergünne‐Otte L, Heimlich S, et al. Ugandan and British individuals' views of refugees in their countries: An exploratory comparison. Journal of Community &amp; Applied Social Psychology. 2022;32(1):42-56.Using an exploratory mixed-methods approach, we examined thoughts concerning refugees reported by participants from a non-Western country, Uganda, and the United Kingdom (total N = 113). We explored whether, due to various sociocultural, political and geographic differences, critical features of refugee migration (e.g., migration forcedness and migration-related perils) would be viewed differently by Ugandan and UK participants. An inductive qualitative content analysis of responses in an online survey yielded 11 categories with 40 subcategories revealing several similarities between Ugandan and UK participants. For instance, similar proportions of participants from both countries acknowledged refugees' suffering before their migration and the forced nature of refugees' migration. However, we also found that more British than Ugandan participants referred to perils refugees suffer during their journeys, possibly resulting from differences in refugees' migration routes (e.g., crossing other countries, travelling by dilapidated boats, migration duration). Furthermore, Ugandan but not British participants took pride in international praise their country received for its forthcoming treatment of refugees. There were no differences regarding the extent to which Ugandan and British individuals exhibited prejudice towards refugees or experienced threats from refugees. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for refugee integration