McGinnity, F., Creighton, M., & Fahey, É. (2020). Hidden versus revealed attitudes: A list experiment on support for minorities in Ireland. ESRI Report July 2020. IHREC, Dublin.

Country

Ireland

Title

McGinnity, F., Creighton, M., & Fahey, É. (2020). Hidden versus revealed attitudes: A list experiment on support for minorities in Ireland. ESRI Report July 2020. IHREC, Dublin.

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Year

2020

Type of publication

Report

Geographical coverage

National

Area/location of interest

Not applicable - national level

Type of Institution

National human rights body

Institution

Ireland, Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and Economic and Social Research Institute (ESR()

Main Thematic Focus

Discrimination

Target Population

Muslims

Key findings

Only 53% of people support more Muslims coming to Ireland, with people making no effort to conceal their attitude about this. Antipathy toward Muslim immigrants was higher than that expressed toward Polish and Black immigrants. Significant social desirability pressure is found for the race/ethnicity and EU origin frames. Education is significantly and substantively related to the experience of social desirability pressure. Better-educated respondents reported greater support for immigration, regardless of frame, but also significantly masked. This masking was not shared by less-educated respondents when considering Muslim and Black immigrants. EU origin seemed to elicit social desirability pressure, regardless of respondents’ educational background.

Methodology (Qualitative/Quantitative and exact type used, questionnaires etc)

Data from 3 list experiments measuring sentiment on immigration were used. The list experiment provides three key measures of attitudes: (1) a direct question measures overt sentiment and is comparable to a standard survey; (2) subtracting the mean response to the control list from the mean response to one of the treatment lists measures covert sentiment, providing absolute and permanent anonymity, (3) the difference between overt and covert estimates measures the extent to which anonymity results in a distinct level of support/opposition, interpretable as social desirability bias. Would you support more …. Black people [June, 2017]/ Muslim people [July, 2017] / Polish people [April, 2019] …..coming to live in Ireland?

Sample details and representativeness

The Economic Sentiment Monitor (ESM) is a nationally representative telephone survey of the Irish population, conducted by the ESRI. In addition to recording a variety of respondents’ individual characteristics (e.g., age, gender, nationality, occupation, and educational attainment), its core objective was to gauge public sentiment about the Irish economy, housing market, and personal savings. The ESM was a repeated cross-sectional survey, which sampled approximately 800 respondents in each wave. In June 2017, July 2017 and April 2019, 3566 responses were collected in total.

DISCLAIMERThe information presented here is collected under contract by the FRA's research network FRANET. The information and views contained do not necessarily reflect the views or the official position of the FRA.