The vicious circle of hostility from western societies towards refugees, asylum-seekers and immigrantspicture-elicitation instrument for assessment, intervention and advocacy

Abstract

Hostility, anger and mistrust towards refugees, asylum-seekers and immigrants (RASI) who arrive in Western societies, not only damage the biopsychosocial Well-being of those affected, but also undermines their trust in helping professional and care services. Media content, harsh migration policies and political discourse all affect societies’ negative views and attitudes towards RASI. Being mistreated, in turn, leads to feelings like helplessness, sadness, anger, despair, social isolation and, in some cases, to find ways of coping that are harmful to self or others. Joining mafias, extremism or radicalization are potential coping strategies used in the midst of despair, leading to a vicious circle of hostility from host societies towards RASI and vice-versa. With the input of 34 international experts working in 18 countries in four continents, a new tool (PEI) was developed for assessment, intervention, and advocacy. In a sample of 509 Latin RASI, a shorter version (ARS_13) of the ARS_19 was efficient in discriminating between four categories of RASI: “Social desirability”, “Chewing”, “Grudge”, and “Vengeance”. MCA was conducted on these categories with three other variables: age groups, answers to the emotion-scale from the PEI and levels of withdrawal. The analyses revealed that all age groups of RASI were affected by the discrimination scenarios, but the youngest (18-29) were the ones revealing the greatest tendency for resentment (“Vengeance” and “Grudge”), pointed more to “Despair”, and had higher levels of social isolation. These are attributes that, according to the literature, may influence radicalization and violent behaviour. Therefore, these results make a positive contribution to the literature by offering a new instrument (PEI) that can be used for the development of interventions to alleviate the suffering of RASI and, simultaneously, advocate for more humane treatment for these people and contribute to more compassionate societies.