Stolen Pride, Stolen Security? Emotions, Economics, and Immigration Preferences

• In Event: International Migration Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 04. Attitudes about immigrants/immigration

Abstract

Immigration is a deeply contentious issue among the American public. While studies of restrictive attitudes toward immigration have long highlighted the roles of racism and cultural threat, I build on nascent scholarship highlighting the role of perceived economic threat to examine whether interventions designed to resonate with individuals’ emotional interests can shift policy preferences. Specifically, I use a survey experiment to test the effect of presenting increasing legal immigration as a solution to a real-world economic issue: the impending insolvency of the social security system. I find that reading an article that aligns with the conservative “deep story” or “feels-as-if” metaphor (Hochschild 2016) is highly effective among Republicans, causing this group to liberalize their stance so they are statistically indistinguishable from Independents; however, Independents and Democrats are unaffected by treatment. This suggests that economic drivers of immigration preferences are more important than previously appreciated, especially when information is framed in a way that aligns with partisan worldviews.

Author

• Joey Dickinson, Washington University in St. Louis