Immigration Attitudes in the U.S.: Economic Outlook and Cultural Threat Perception

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Abstract

Integrated threat theory predicts that prejudice emerges when in-group members perceive a threat from out-group members. Realistic threat occurs from a possible competition over scarce resources or the well-being of the in-group members. Measures for covering realistic threats such as evaluations of the national economy become consistent predictors of immigrant attitudes. Symbolic threats involve the perception of violation of a group’s values, norms, and identities. Literature suggests that this cultural aspect of threat provides one of the strongest explanations for immigrant attitudes. In line with these, this paper aims to explore the effect of the perception of the state of the national economy and the perception of cultural threat on developing immigrant attitudes among the American electorate. Based on data from the 2016 ANES Time Series Study, we test the following hypotheses: (1) higher optimism about the country’s current economic conditions will result in having less anti-immigrant attitudes, (2) higher levels of cultural threat will result in having higher levels of anti-immigrant attitudes, (3) the effect of cultural threat on developing anti-immigrant attitudes will have a variation among people with(out) a college degree. Our OLS regression analysis provides strong evidence for proving our first two hypotheses, confirming that perceptions about the national economic outlook and cultural threat are strong determinants for developing anti-immigrant attitudes.

Authors

• Reha Atakan Cetin, University of Florida

• Sebastian Tobon Palma, University of Illinois at Chicago