Social Stereotypes about Immigrants and the Partisan Divide on Immigration

• In Event: Understanding Attitudes toward Immigration

Abstract

Recent empirical evidence suggests that Americans largely agree as far as the desired qualities of potential immigrants are concerned. These are predominantly related to immigrants’ potential of contributing to the economy. At the same time, Democrats and Republicans are strongly divided in terms of preferences with regard to immigration policy. How can this paradox be explained? I argue that the answer to this question has to do with social stereotypes, i.e. with perceptions about who the immigrants are. Testing this hypothesis, however, is related to an essential methodological challenge. Various dimensions of stereotypes about immigrants are intertwined in people’s minds---such as, for instance, race/ethnicity on the one hand and skills or education on the other hand. To address this problem, I design and implement an original conjoint experiment that allows isolating different dimensions of social stereotypes about immigrants. These include age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, occupation status, reliance on government benefits, and police record. My results suggest that Americans predominantly distinguish between native-born and foreign-born people on the basis of race/ethnicity. Specifically, the difference in probability ratings of being immigrants between Hispanics and Asians on the one hand and blacks and whites on the other hand is approximately 10 percentage points. However, this effect is true for both Democrats and Republicans. The partisan divide lies in the other dimension of stereotypes: perception of immigrants as using the system of government benefits. Among respondents who self-identify as Republicans, profiles presented as dependent on government benefits are rated as eight percentage points more likely to belong to an immigrant. For Democrats, the same information has no impact of rating a person as native-born vs. foreign-born. Also, there seems to be no conditions in which natives are seen as more dependent on benefits than immigrants. Therefore, the key partisan difference in stereotypes about immigrants focuses on “deservingness” and in this regard seems to follow the long-standing divide in American politics. The origins of these stereotypes are not completely clear but they are likely to be social constructions that follow the popular narratives of the partisan media on both sides. My findings have important implications for the understanding of partisan politics with respect to immigration in the United States.

Author

• Kirill Zhirkov, University of Michigan