Value Profiles as Moderators of the Relationship Between National Identification and Attitudes Towards Minorities: An Example from Croatian Youth

Social identity approaches suggest that people favour ingroup members, yet ingroup favouritism does not necessarily translate into outgroup derogation. Using a sample of Croatian majority-group youth from a nationally and religiously homogeneous pre-COVID context, we examined whether personal values moderate the relationship between national identification and attitudes towards minorities. We conducted a latent profile analysis (LPA) on higher-order values among young Croatian Catholics who did not belong to minority groups (N = 994) and identified five value profiles that varied primarily in the prioritisation of openness to change versus conservation. Profiles differed in minority attitudes and national identification. Crucially, the association between national identification and minority attitudes varied across profiles: it was unrelated in the profile prioritising openness over conservation, whereas in the remaining profiles it tended to be negative and was most consistently negative in the profile prioritising conservation over openness. Taken together, the findings highlight the role of values in the relationship between group identification and attitudes towards outgroups, confirming their relevance for social cohesion and potential for the development of deradicalisation interventions.