La Orientación de Dominancia Social y la ampliación de los derechos a los inmigrantes: el rol mediador de las ideologías sociales

Social dominance theory (Sidanius e Pratto, 1999) posit that all human societies are organised in group-based hierarchical systems. Age and gender groups are the most common basis of social hierarchy, other widespread criteria are ethnic, national, or religious belongings. Group-based hierarchy often produces discrimination and domination. Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) is considered a personality variable that measures a general individual orientation to accept hierarchy, and consequently to justify discrimination and domination between groups, within any given social system. In the modern Western Countries societies SDO can influence attitudes towards foreign immigrants and also the basis of its inclusion or exclusion, i.e. the concept of citizenship. This can be considered both in terms of status, from which rights and duties are derived, and in terms of practises that imply civic mind and participation to social life. The meanings that people attribute to citizenship lie on specific conceptions about the nature of the State that, in turn, can be perceived as a champion of the defence of ingroup (citizens) privileges against the challenging outgroup (settled immigrants), or a social entity based on participation and solidarity towards the weaker social categories that compose it, including settled immigrants. The study involved 239 adult Italians (average age = 45.51; S.D. =15.03). The basic hypothesis, tested via structural equation model, was that SDO influences conception of the nature and tasks of the State (penal vs. welfare State), and attitudes toward multiculturalism (acceptance vs. refusal of cultural differences) that in turn influence majority members attitudes towards the inclusion of settled immigrants in the ingroup. This last variable was operationalized by means of the agreement to grant to immigrants one of the most representative symbol of belonging and participation to a modern Nation-State life, the right of vote in general elections. As expected, results showed that SDO influences a negative attitude towards multiculturalism and a penal state concept. This conception of the state influences the agreement with concession of the right of vote to legal immigrants but, contrary to our first hypothesis, multiculturalism do not