Collective psychological ownership and welfare chauvinism: exploring double standards in Finnish immigration attitudes / Propiedad psicológica colectiva y chovinismo del bienestar: explorando los dobles estándares en las actitudes hacia la inmigración en Finlandia

Abstract

This survey study explored double standards in immigration attitudes among the Finnish national majority (N = 1,000), comparing attitudes towards the reception of Ukrainians fleeing the war vs. border control for migrants in general. We investigated how Collective Psychological Ownership (CPO) and welfare chauvinism shape these attitudes. CPO over the country was assessed through territorial (CPO-T: ‘Finland is our country/land’) and epistemic (CPO-E: ‘The story of Finland is our story’) dimensions. Epistemic ownership was associated with support for stricter border control, with territorial ownership showing a weaker positive association. Neither dimension directly affected attitudes towards the reception of Ukrainians. Welfare chauvinism consistently related to stricter attitudes across both domains. Importantly, welfare chauvinism moderated how ownership shaped attitudes towards Ukrainians: at low levels, territorial ownership was linked to more exclusion while epistemic ownership was linked to more inclusion. At high levels of welfare chauvinism, this pattern partially reversed, with epistemic ownership being linked to more exclusion. These findings suggest that resource-related concerns alter how national ownership translates into immigration attitudes, revealing interactions between identity and economic considerations.