Australians are much more worried about terrorism and racism than they were just four months ago.

As politicians talk up national security and move to protect the country from threats of terrorism, Australians are feeling more nationalistic, a new social cohesion survey finds.

Researchers from the Scanlon Foundation and Monash University surveyed people’s attitudes to social cohesion, multiculturalism and immigration in June and July as part of a long-running study.

• Burqa ban: Lambie’s plan includes jail, fines
• Sydney jihadist teen’s next video

In October, amid talk of heightened security, they went back and asked some of their questions again.

Both in June and October, economic concerns topped the list of what people thought was the most important problem Australia faced.

But in the later survey, national security or terrorism jumped to second and racism to third.

Report author Andrew Markus said these were linked in Australia’s polarised society, with the general issue of racism reflecting the concerns of some people about the tenor of debate on national security.

Neither worry made the top five in June.

• Click the owl to see the survey’s key findings:  

The government raised the terror alert level in September to “high” for the first time.

Researchers also found the perceived threat heightened a sense of nationalism.

The number of people who strongly believed maintaining the Australian way of life was important jumped to more than 70 per cent.

Similarly, while the percentage of people who felt they didn’t belong in Australia remained about the same, the proportion of those who felt a sense of belonging to a great extent increased markedly, to almost three-quarters.

“It makes sense because as people feel threatened and as they feel that perhaps their values are being challenged, there’s this reaffirmation of values,” Professor Markus told AAP.

He was most surprised by the fact people’s attitudes towards Muslims hadn’t changed amid all the talk of terrorism and jihadists.

Australians continue to be much more likely to hold negative views of Muslims compared to other religions, but these attitudes have remained much the same since 2011.

More than four in five people thought multiculturalism had been good for Australia.