Perceived threat to national values in evaluating stereotyped immigrants

Abstract

The present research examined the psychological reasons behind Americans’ (un)willingness to accept immigrants. Participants read a scenario depicting immigrant groups allegedly expected to arrive in the U.S. and evaluated how much the immigrants would influence two types of American national values: civic values (e.g., political ideology) and ethnic values (e.g., shared culture and customs). Across three studies, competitive immigrant groups were stereotyped to be untrustworthy, and perceived to threaten American civic values but not ethnic values. Value threat then mediated the predicted competition-prejudice relationship in Study 3. Perceived vulnerability of in-group boundary might specify one motivated cause of derogating immigrants.