Disgust Sensitivity and Support for Immigration Policy across Four Nations

• In Event: Understanding Attitudes toward Immigration

Abstract

Scholars interested in public opinion have become increasingly aware of the importance of non-cognitive processes revolving around emotions in understanding how citizens react to political issues . Several scholars have emphasized the utility of psychological and biological concepts in understanding public policy and public opinion attitudes (Jost et al. 2003; Alford et al. 2005; Graham et al. 2009; Mondak 2010). This project moves us forward on this trajectory as we investigate the impact of variations in a central human emotion that has been identified previously as impacting political views and policy preferences, namely disgust.

Disgust is characterized as part of a behavioral immune system that motivates avoidance of people or situations that might result in contamination. We use individual sensitivity to disgust as the key variable driving our theoretical predictions. Disgust sensitivity is measured using the pathogen subscale of the Three Domains of Disgust Scale (Olatunji et al. 2012). We predict respondents with higher levels of disgust sensitivity will more strongly endorse limitations on immigration and refugees (H1). Because the emotion of disgust has been consistently linked to avoidance of contamination, and purity policies have been framed as designed to insure avoidance of contamination, we predict that respondents with higher levels of disgust sensitivity will more strongly endorse strict regulation across purity policies and a greater hesitancy to immunize their own children as they fear vaccines can infect recipients. (H2). We finally test that disgust sensitive people will be more likely to identify with parties on the right, especially those who have staked out a strong position against immigration (H3).

To test this we collect data across USA, Norway, Sweden, and Turkey. The Turkish data are from a national public opinion survey. The other three countries use nationwide samples with highly diverse samples, collected using internet surveys. Despite considerable differences across these countries in the visibility of immigrants, immigrant/refugee policies, the economic and political conditions, along with background differences in income, religious composition, and gender equality we find Disgust Sensitivity explains individual support or opposition to immigrants across all four countries, even after relevant political variables are controlled for.

Authors

• Scott Clifford, University of Houston

• Cengiz Erisen, Yeditepe University

• Dane G. Wendell, Illinois College