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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 …

Decoding Prejudice Toward Hispanics: Group Cues And Public Reactions To Threatening Immigrant Behavior, Todd K. Hartman, Benjamin J. Newman, C. Scott Bell

Todd K. Hartman

Consistent with theories of modern racism, we argue that white, non-Hispanic Americans have adopted a “coded,” race-neutral means of expressing prejudice toward Hispanic immigrants by citing specific behaviors that are deemed inappropriate—either because they are illegal or threatening in an economic or cultural manner. We present data from a series of nationally representative, survey-embedded experiments to tease out the distinct role that anti-Hispanic prejudice plays in shaping public opinion on immigration. Our results show that white Americans take significantly greater offense to transgressions such as being in the country illegally, “working under the table,” and rejecting symbols of American identity, …

Social Dominance And The Cultural Politics Of Immigration, Benjamin J. Newman, Todd K. Hartman, Charles S. Taber

Todd K. Hartman

We argue that conflict over immigration largely concerns who bears the burden of cultural transaction costs, which we define as the costs associated with overcoming cultural barriers (e.g., language) to social exchange. Our framework suggests that the ability of native-born citizens to push cultural transaction costs onto immigrant outgroups serves as an important expression of social dominance. In two novel studies, we demonstrate that social dominance motives condition emotional responses to encountering cultural transaction costs, shape engagement in cultural accommodation behavior toward immigrants, and affect immigration attitudes and policy preferences.

[Impact Factor: 1.614 (2011); Rank: 12 of 148 (Political Science); …