Date of Award
Fall 2022
Degree Type
Open Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Psychology, PhD
Program
School of Social Science, Politics, and Evaluation
Advisor/Supervisor/Committee Chair
Michael A. Hogg
Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member
William D. Crano
Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member
Jason T. Siegel
Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member
Sofia Stathi
Terms of Use & License Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Rights Information
© 2022 Alicia S Davis
Keywords
Imagined contact, Immigrant attitudes, Intergroup attitudes, Social identity theory, Social identity threat
Subject Categories
Psychology | Social Psychology
Abstract
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.
ISBN
9798368461519
Recommended Citation
Davis, Alicia S.. (2022). Attitudes Toward Immigrants as a Function of National Identity Distinctiveness Threat and Imagined Contact. CGU Theses & Dissertations, 438. https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgu_etd/438.
