Attitudes Toward Immigrants as a Function of National Identity Distinctiveness Threat and Imagined Contact

<p>As immigration rises, frequent and positive intergroup interactions with immigrants are increasingly necessary to ensure smooth and harmonious societal and community functioning. However, immigrants are often perceived to threaten the host population’s distinctive national group identity, motivating negative reactions including dehumanization, ethnocentrism, and a shift toward extremism, reducing opportunities for positive intergroup interaction. Researchers have shown that intergroup contact has been effective in improving outgroup attitudes by reducing intergroup anxiety. However, with increasing polarization, more recent research has indicated that contact interventions may not be effective in all cases. Given research identifying social identity-based distinctiveness threat as a driver of negative attitudes to immigrants, this threat was targeted as a way to improve contact effects. In a two-study series, distinctiveness threat was measured (Study 1; N = 231) and manipulated (Study 2; N = 272) to test its moderating role in the relationship between imagined contact and attitudes toward immigrants. Results showed that distinctiveness threat, when measured, was predictive of attitudes where imagined contact was not (Study 1), and that the effect of imagined contact was significant only when distinctiveness threat was reduced (Study 2). This research suggests a potential intervention that can prepare host communities to accept and integrate immigrants.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Psychology, PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Open Access Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

School of Social Science, Politics, and Evaluation

Year dc:date.available

2022

Author dc:creator

• Davis, Alicia S.

Contributors dc:contributor

• William D. Crano
• Jason T. Siegel
• Sofia Stathi

• Imagined contact
• Immigrant attitudes
• Intergroup attitudes
• Social identity theory
• Social identity threat
• Psychology
• Social Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/438

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholarship.claremont.edu:cgu_etd-1469