How empathy and race shape American attitudes toward refugees

Global refugee crises often spark varying levels of public sympathy, with some displaced groups receiving warmer welcomes than others. A recent psychological study found that while a general sense of empathy strongly drives public support for all refugees, the race of the displaced individuals can sway the opinions of white Americans who otherwise exhibit low empathy. The research was published in The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics.

People fleeing conflict or persecution rely on host countries to supply a safe harbor. Refugees differ from voluntary economic immigrants because they are forced to flee their homes to escape violence. Because their movement is humanitarian, host populations typically view them with less economic suspicion than undocumented immigrants. Still, public warmth toward displacement communities remains uneven.

Political scientists Hannah L. Paul of the University of Missouri and Courtney J. Nava of Grinnell College wanted to understand the psychological roots of these disparities. They suspected that racial dynamics might condition the way Americans feel about incoming populations. Existing research shows that reading about the hardships of immigrants can boost inclusive attitudes, but little was known about how an individual’s daily empathy intersects with the perceived race of a displaced person.

Paul and Nava proposed a concept called racialized empathy. Empathy is simply the capacity to understand and share the feelings of another person. Because empathy requires mental and emotional energy, humans subconsciously regulate how much of it they extend to outside groups. Empathizing with others is an exhausting cognitive task, and people often find it psychologically easier to relate to those who share their own social or racial background.

The researchers theorized that this shared identity might elevate a person’s willingness to accept specific refugee groups. To test this idea, they designed a web-based experiment. They recruited over 2,600 participants from across the United States. Half of these respondents self-identified as Black, and the other half self-identified as white.

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The study specifically focused on Black and white populations to explore deeply rooted American political categories. Participants of mixed racial backgrounds or Hispanic heritage were excluded to cleanly isolate specific, long-standing historical dynamics. Once enrolled, the respondents read a standard, diplomatic definition of the word refugee.

Alongside this text, each participant viewed a photograph of a young woman with a blurred background. By random chance, half of the respondents saw a picture of a white woman from Ukraine. The remaining participants saw a picture of a Black woman from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The images were chosen because the women appeared similar in age and facial expression.

After viewing the profile, respondents answered a series of statements designed to measure their baseline empathy toward displaced people. Empathy generally contains two functional parts. The first aspect involves perspective taking, which means mentally stepping into someone else’s shoes. The second aspect involves emotional concern, which translates to feeling protective or softhearted toward a vulnerable group.

Participants then answered questions to map their actual policy attitudes concerning refugee resettlement. They were asked if they viewed these groups as an economic threat to American society. They also rated their willingness to take direct action, such as donating money or calling their elected representatives to support migration policies.

The researchers converted the answers into a standardized score. They found that a mild increase in generalized empathy pushed public support up heavily on their designated scale. This internal psychological trait completely overpowered traditional demographic indicators like age and education level.

The strongest factor predicting approval of refugees turned out to be the respondent’s underlying capacity for empathy. For both Black and white test subjects, people who scored high on the general empathy scale were highly supportive of refugee resettlement. For these highly empathetic individuals, the race of the woman pictured in the photograph did not matter.

Race did affect attitudes in certain subsets of the population, however. For white respondents who possessed low baseline empathy, the racial cues shifted their policy preferences. Low-empathy white participants reported distinctly lower support for refugees after seeing the photograph of the Black woman compared to those who viewed the white woman.

For Black respondents, the race shown in the photograph did not alter their final answers. Across the board, Black participants showed generally high support for all refugees, regardless of whether the woman pictured was Black or white. A slight preference for the Black refugee was observed among Black participants, but this bump in support was not statistically significant.

The researchers note that this specific finding aligns with distinct cultural and political frameworks. For white Americans, public opinion on immigration is heavily influenced by racial viewpoints. For Black Americans, these specific attitudes are often guided by a broader sense of solidarity with marginalized groups. A fear of being historically marginalized in society leads many Black voters to view humanitarian issues through an egalitarian lens.

Paul and Nava also measured the concept of linked fate among the participants. Linked fate describes a belief that a person’s individual success is directly tied to the success of their broader racial group within the country. For white respondents, a strong sense of a linked fate actually curbed their support for refugees.

The relationship reversed for Black participants. Black respondents who strongly felt their fate was tied to other Black Americans were highly supportive of refugee groups. The researchers suggested this means public opinion regarding displaced populations hinges heavily on an individual’s placement within societal hierarchies.

The study also examined the role of political party affiliation. The researchers wanted to know if identifying as a Republican or a Democrat predicts a person’s underlying empathy. They found that Republicans generally expressed much less empathy for refugees and much less support for their resettlement than Democrats.

The political divide directly shaped policy attitudes entirely on its own. While identifying as a Republican was associated with lower measurable empathy, that reduction only explained a small fraction of the total partisan gap. The direct association between being a Republican and opposing refugee resettlement was quite large.

The authors acknowledge a few limitations regarding their experimental design. The study only examined Black and white racial identities, leaving out many other global ethnic backgrounds. The research also captured public opinion at a single moment in time, meaning the results represent a specific snapshot of the current political climate.

Additionally, the researchers only utilized pictures of female refugees. Photographs of women typically elicit less perceived threat from the general public than photographs of men. Using images of men might have reduced the baseline sympathy levels of the respondents and altered the final data.

Future research could explore how these empathy boundaries shift during major international conflicts. The social categories that define who belongs in an accepted group are constantly evolving. As different migration crises dominate global news cycles, the psychological energy required to empathize with foreign populations may continue to fluctuate.

The study, “Racialized Empathy and Attitudes Toward Refugees in the United States,” was authored by Hannah L. Paul and Courtney J. Nava.