The Impact of Immigrant Status and Crime Severity on Perceptions of Racially-Motivated Hate Crimes

Racially motivated hate crimes are often viewed as involving violence and racial slurs, but some research has shown that participants are able to identity racially motivated hate crimes even when these elements are not present. Racial prejudice has been demonstrated to impact perceptions of racially motivated hate crimes, however the role of immigrant status in these perceptions has often been neglected in research. High immigrant status groups have been found to be more likely to receive help and are perceived more positively than low status immigrant groups. As a result, the question has been raised of how does immigrant status and crime severity impact perceptions of racially motivated hate crimes. This study aims to answer this questions and analyse the interaction these two variables have upon perceptions of racially motivated hate crimes. A 4x2 mixed methods design will be implement, with four levels of crime severity and two levels of immigrant status being manipulated and their impact on mean scores of perceptions of racially motivated hate crimes being measured. Participants will be randomly assigned into one immigrant status condition (high or low), and will provide initial prejudice towards one high status immigrant group and then answer three questions for each of the four crime severity vignettes. These vignettes will be in a randomised order and this process will be repeated for the remaining immigrant status group. Participants will either see vignettes regarding two high status or low status immigrant groups. A mixed factor ANOVA will be implemented to analyse the impact the two IVs have upon the DV, and controls for education level and employment with the criminal justice system will also be analysed.