Identification with the EU and attitudes towards Ukrainian refugees: egalitarian solidarity or double standard?

Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine has generated unprecedent solidarity by the EU. Research has suggested that identification with the EU could positively affect the intention to help Ukrainians. The aim of this research is to make a further contribution in this direction, exploring the effect of identification with the EU on attitude towards welcoming of Ukrainian refugees and favouritism towards them, compared to other refugee groups. Following a social identity perspective, we investigated these attitudes considering the role of egalitarian world-view and degree of separation between Ukraine and the EU, to understand whether they could affect ingroup bias and a double standard in welcoming refugees. The results of a survey (N = 300) suggest two different psychological processes: (1) identification with the EU stimulates the adoption of egalitarian values which, in turn, foster a positive attitude towards welcoming Ukrainians; (2) the degree of separation between Ukraine and the EU moderates the association between identification and favouritism; that is, participants who score low on this variable tend to show favouritism towards Ukrainian refugees over others. Results are discussed drawing on the theory of social identity and the common ingroup identity model.