Abstract

Predictors of perceived population size and perceived right to reside in the UK were tested for immigrants to Britain. Two studies explored psychological responses of British respondents to immigration to the UK. A questionnaire study examined responses towards migrants living in the UK from India, Poland and Syria (Study 1,N= 136). In this study, perceived intergroup similarity and intergroup threat predicted intergroup affect, which in turn predicted estimates of the migrant group size and the perceived right of the migrants to reside in the UK. Study 2 (N= 126) was an experiment which manipulated similarity and threat, and elicited responses towards a fictional migrant group, to get a better handle on the causal direction of effects observed in Study 1. Taken together, the studies showed that perceived population size and perceived right to reside in Britain were predicted by intergroup similarity, threat and affect.