Haters Gonna Hate: How Symbolic and Psychological Variables Explain Attitudes towards Immigrants

This study examines how symbolic, psychological and material factors influence how Americans view migrants before and after the heated 2016 primary season leading to the nomination of Donald Trump as the Republican Party’s presidential candidate. We hypothesize that prior unfavorable predispositions towards migrants, preference for high skilled migrants, personality traits, and material variables strongly influence views on migrants. We examine the effect of these variables with two controlled experiments set a year apart, before and after the 2016 primary election. The experiments manipulate the ethnicity (Asian, Hispanic, Arab) and skill level (high skilled or low skilled) of migrant groups. In both experiments, we find that respondents have an overall positive view of migrants regardless of ethnicity. However, those respondents who hold anti-immigrant stereotypes, have authoritarian personalities, and whose economic standing is worsening see immigrants as threatening. We also find that negative emotion plays a mediating role in this process.