Increasing numbers of both immigrants and refugees have challenged European countries in the last decades. Empirical evidence on explanations of attitudes towards immigrants is overwhelming. However, recent research has demonstrated that refugees are received differently compared to immigrants; the public is likely to allow more refugees to enter the country than immigrants. Whether people differentiate between the general group of immigrants versus refugees remains unknown. Moreover, what explains these different attitudes towards refugees as compared to immigrants is unanswered, as we are unable to make strict comparisons between the explanatory models of attitudes towards refugees versus attitudes towards immigrants with the current data. This project aims to get an insight in the extent to people differentiate between refugees and immigrants in their attitudes and investigates how explanations of attitudes to refugees differ from explanations of attitudes towards immigrants. By drawing on conflict and contact theory, this research will provide evidence on the question which concerns affect attitudes towards refugees versus immigrants specifically. This is all the more relevant since in research, media, as well as politics and policies, the terms ‘immigrants’ and ‘refugees’ are coined to refer to different groups.

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