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The European Values Study (EVS) was first conducted in 1981 and then repeated in 1990, 1999, 2008, and 2017, with the aim of providing researchers with data to investigate whether European individual and social values are changing and to what degree. The EVS is traditionally carried out as a probability-based face-to-face survey that takes around 1 hour to complete. In recent years, large-scale population surveys such as the EVS have been challenged by decreasing response rates and increasing survey costs. In the light of these challenges, six countries that participated in the last wave of the EVS tested the application of self-administered mixed-modes (Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, and Switzerland). With the present data brief, we will introduce researchers to the latest wave of the EVS, the implemented mode experiments, and the EVS data releases. In our view, it is pivotal for data use in substantive research to make the reasoning behind design changes and country-specific implementations transparent as well as to highlight new research opportunities.

In the past few years, millions have been forced to leave their homes seeking refuge in other countries, most displaced from Muslim majority countries. The inflow of refugees and recent terrorist attacks in Europe may have reinforced prejudice against Muslim immigrants in Europe. Research on these issues is almost non-existent in Iceland. Using a random sample of 3.360 individuals in late 2019 and a survey-based experimental design, we address several questions related to attitudes towards Muslim immigrants and refugees in Iceland. Our results indicate that just over half of the population is willing to accept more refugees than is currently done and does not want to limit the proportion of Muslims among them. Notwithstanding, about 44% of the public believe that the risk of terrorism will increase if Iceland accepts more immigrants from Muslim majority countries. Political orientation and education are associated with attitudes toward refugees, an association that is partly mediated through stereotypes of Muslims as a security threat. The findings also show that people who are informed that research finds no link between the number of Muslim immigrants and the risk of terrorism are less likely to stereotype Muslim immigrants as a security threat than people who get no such information. This type of information has similar effects on people irrespective of their political orientation. Consequently, the current study does not support the proposition that right-leaning individuals in Iceland are more distrustful of scientific information than those on the left. The effects are, however, significantly contingent on education.