The relationships between empathy, collective action and asylum seeker policy support

ABSTRACT Objective Although Australia’s annual intake of refugees and asylum seekers is small relative to many other countries, the issue remains highly salient in political and media discourse, which continues to focus on processing policies and is associated with the entrenchment of negative attitudes towards this minority group. The literature has posited that empathy may be an antidote to these negative attitudes, and may assist in predicting increases in collective action intentions and decreases in support for punitive policies about how asylum seekers should be treated. The current study explored whether support for asylum seeker policy (i.e. turn-back-the-boats, off-shore processing and onshore processing) was predicted by both dispositional empathy and collective action intentions and whether collective action intentions mediated the relationship between dispositional empathy and policy support. Methods Self-report measures of dispositional empathy, collective action intentions and asylum seeker policy support were responded to by 180 participants (Mage = 29.18 years). Results Analyses revealed that dispositional empathy is a significant predictor of punitive policy support (predicting less support for turn-back-the-boats and off-shore processing policies) and a significant positive predictor of lenient policy support (onshore processing); however, once collective action intentions were accounted for, this was only the case for support of off-shore processing policy. Conclusions Taken together, in this paper we present evidence that collective action intentions and dispositional empathy independently predict support for asylum seeker policies, and that collective action intentions mediated the relationships between policy support and three of four components of dispositional empathy. KEY POINTS What is already known about this topic: Public attitudes toward asylum seekers in Australia are often negative and strongly influence support for punitive policies such as offshore detention and boat turnbacks. Empathy is associated with reduced prejudice toward asylum seekers, but its role in shaping specific policy preferences is not well understood. Willingness to engage in collective action (e.g., petitions, protests) predicts real-world behaviour, yet its relationship with asylum seeker policy support has rarely been examined. What this topic adds: Higher empathy is linked to lower support for punitive asylum seeker policies and greater support for onshore, community-based processing. Willingness to engage in collective action independently predicts support for asylum seeker policies and partially explains how empathy translates into policy attitudes. Interventions that foster empathic concern and collective action may be effective levers for increasing public support for more humane asylum seeker policies.