Social Psychology Commons^™

Easing The Heavy Hand: Humanitarian Concern, Empathy, And Opinion On Immigration, Benjamin J. Newman, Todd K. Hartman, Patrick L. Lown, Stanley Feldman

Todd K. Hartman

The bulk of the opinion research on immigration identifies the factors leading to opposition to immigration among the American public. In contrast, we identify a key factor and condition under which citizens embrace more permissive and supportive positions on immigration. Past research indicates that humanitarianism is a core value orientation promoting support—albeit limited—for social welfare policy. Extending this research into another highly salient policy domain—immigration—we find that humanitarian concern serves as a significant source of support for permissive positions on government immigration policy. Relying upon secondary analysis of national survey data and an original survey experiment, we demonstrate that humanitarian …