La percezione della vulnerabilità: come gli italiani percepiscono i richiedenti asilo e i rifugiati e le loro caratteristiche

This article examines how Italian citizens perceive the vulnerability of asylum seekers and refugees, exploring the extent to which such perceptions depend on individual and situational attributes including gender, age, social class, religion, ethnicity, and context. The study employs a factorial survey experiment conducted in Italy in 2024 (N = 2,000), based on visual vignettes created from AI-generated images. The findings show that perceived vulnerability is strongly shaped by relational factors: images depicting men and women together, or adults with children, are rated as the most vulnerable, particularly when the individuals portrayed are of white ethnicity. By contrast, ethnicity and religion alone do not significantly affect perceptions. These findings suggest that Italians tend to interpret vulnerability in familial and situational terms rather than through the lens of identity. The article makes a twofold contribution: methodologically, it offers an innovative application of AI-generated visual stimuli to survey experiments; substantively, it provides an in-depth analysis of how Italians perceive the vulnerability of asylum seekers and refugees with varying individual characteristics.