Refugees Conservatives visualize Syrian refugees as small, but threatening: study

Published 2 December 2016

A new study found that people who hold more conservative beliefs are more likely to perceive foreigners such as Syrian refugees as threatening, yet visualize them as physically smaller. Conservatives appear to imagine Syrian refugees as smaller because they believe forceful military action against terrorism will prevail. The researchers call this a “Gulliver effect,” inspired by the Jonathan Swift novel. “Comparatively, we find liberals more hesitant to endorse military action, not just from a moral perspective, but because they lack confidence that fighting will work,’” one researcher says. “Liberals in our sample tend to say that it will take years or decades for military action to be effective, if ever.” The study upheld previous research that revealed differences in how political orientation predicts the way people perceive threatening situations or individuals.

Building upon previous research, a new UCLA-led study found that people who hold more conservative beliefs are more likely to perceive foreigners such as Syrian refugees as threatening, yet visualize them as physically smaller. Conservatives appear to imagine Syrian refugees as smaller because they believe forceful military action against terrorism will prevail.

UCLA anthropology research scientist Colin Holbrook calls this a “Gulliver effect,” inspired by the Jonathan Swift novel.

“Comparatively, we find liberals more hesitant to endorse military action, not just from a moral perspective, but because they lack confidence that fighting will work,’” Holbrook said. “Liberals in our sample tend to say that it will take years or decades for military action to be effective, if ever.”

UCLA says that the study, led by Holbrook, upheld previous research that revealed differences in how political orientation predicts the way people perceive threatening situations or individuals. Their findings werepublished in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

“This is the first study to ask the question ‘How does political orientation affect the way people visualize physical size and strength?’” Holbrook said. “We’re tapping into how the mind uses concepts of body size and strength to represent who is more likely to win in a violent conflict. We call this a ‘Gulliver effect’ because conservatives’ confidence in using force to thwart terrorism was closely related to imagining Syrian refugees as relatively small and weak, not unlike Gulliver’s perception of the Lilliputians.”

In the first study, researchers asked 500 paid respondents in the United States to react to text descriptions of two individuals: a Syrian refugee seeking entry to the United States, and an unemployed American looking for a job. Respondents then estimated each person by height, overall body size, and muscularity.

To determine the political orientation of study participants, the researchers asked them to agree or disagree with a list of twenty-five topics presented in random order, about half of which were conservative in nature and the other half liberal.

The imagined physical size and muscularity of the characters, and the answers to the political topic questions, were compared to responses about the use of military intervention to combat terrorism.