The Effectiveness of a Paradoxical Thinking Intervention on Attitudes towards Immigrants and the Influence of Political Orientation

Abstract

Attitudes towards immigrants continually grow more negatively, while the number of immigrants coming to Europe keeps growing. As traditional interventions proved to be ineffective, the current study investigated the effectiveness of a Paradoxical Thinking intervention compared to a traditional intervention on the problem of negative attitudes towards immigrants. Paradoxical Thinking interventions expose individuals to extreme information that is congruent with their attitude, but too extreme to agree with. This paradox of not agreeing with information that is congruent with one’s attitude then leads to a re evaluation of the current attitude. A traditional intervention instead uses information that is incongruent with individuals’ attitudes in order to achieve attitude change. A total of 86 participants (members of the general public) were asked to give their opinion on immigrants three times. In the first survey, this opinion was measured twice: once before exposure to either a Paradoxical Thinking intervention or a traditional intervention, and once after. In the second survey a week later, this opinion was asked again after exposure to the intervention. The Paradoxical Thinking intervention did not result in a more positive attitude change than the traditional intervention, and political orientation did not influence this. The importance and limitations of the current research are discussed, and suggestions for further research are provided.