One of the main issues currently being discussed in EU is how to integrate immigrants. The majority in the arrival countries play a critical role in the process of integration, mainly through their attitudes to the newcomers. Therefore, it is crucial to implement multicultural education throughout primary and secondary education. During the last few years European media and politicians have been increasingly concerned with the so-called migration crisis, connected to a large number of refugees. It has resulted in the wide-spread opinion among some groups of EU citizens that it is an issue that demands a promt solution (Standard Eurobarometer 85, 2016). Moreover, in many EU countries this migration flow is associated with negative emotions towards the newcomers.

Our research focuses on two issues: personality as a factor influencing attitudes towards immigrants, and on the role of emotions in the migration crisis especially concerning the attitudes towards the immigrants.

Personality can be divided into five basic dimensions (the so-called Big Five personality traits) – Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to experience, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness. Each dimension contains further specific characteristics (McCrae, John, 1992). A number of research surveys have shown that personality traits are associated with a wide range of social, political, economic attitudes and behaviours. E. g. Sibley, Osborne, Duckitt (2012) repeatedly confirmed a relation between personality (Openness to experience and Conscientiousness) and political orientation. Ekehammar a Akrami (2003) showed a correlation between Openness and Agreeableness and generalised prejudice.

Personality traits can also influence how people react to immigrant groups.  In their study, Gallego and Pardos Prado (2014) found a mutual link between personality traits and attitudes towards immigrants. Akrami, Ekehammar a Bergh (2011) have carried out a research study on a correlation of racism and attitudes to immigrants.

We assume that openness to experience can determine a positive attitute towards immigrants. As people who have high scores in the scale of openness are tolerant, open to experiments, they are interested in new ways of behaviours, and they like change and diversity (Hřebíčková, Urbánek, 2001). People with a higher score on this scale also tend to have more liberal political ideas (Osborne, Sibley, 2012) as well as they support cultural diversity (Sibley, Osborne, Duckitt, 2012).

When it comes to emotions, our research is based on the theory that these constitute a crucial component in the formation of prejudice and stereotypes. They can also become a mediator between stereotypes and prejudice.

Positive emotions play a role in building up the social interactions of an individual, they make learning easier and they help to discover new ways of creative thinking and behaviours. Whereas some negative emotional states can reinforce tendencies towards risk choice behaviour. People tend to prefer short-term risks to long-term safe choices (Stuchlíková, 2002). A larger amount of negative emotions reflecting in attitudes towards foreigners was found out in study of Trounson, Critchly a Pfeifer (2015).

We were especially interested in answering the following questions:

1. Is there a statistically significant correlation between personality traits and attitudes to immigrants?

2. How does the fear as an emotion in the so-called migration crisis reflect on the attitudes towards immigrants? Is there a link between the emotional state of individuals towards the migration crisis and attitudes towards immigrants?

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