Attitudes toward US immigration policy: The roles of in-group-out-group bias, economic concern, and obedience to law

YT Lee, V Ottati - The Journal of Social Psychology, 2002 - Taylor & Francis
YT Lee, V Ottati
The Journal of Social Psychology, 2002Taylor & Francis
California's Proposition 187, directed primarily toward Mexican immigrants, deprives illegal
immigrants of many benefits associated with US citizenship and facilitates their deportation.
The authors hypothesized that the respondents' opinions on this proposition would be
determined by in-group-out-group bias (ie, the tendency to evaluate the ethnic out-group
more negatively than the ethnic in-group). In accord with that hypothesis, variations in
respondent ethnicity (Studies 1 and 2) and in immigrant ethnicity (Study 3) were …
Abstract
California's Proposition 187, directed primarily toward Mexican immigrants, deprives illegal immigrants of many benefits associated with U.S. citizenship and facilitates their deportation. The authors hypothesized that the respondents' opinions on this proposition would be determined by in-group-out-group bias (i.e., the tendency to evaluate the ethnic out-group more negatively than the ethnic in-group). In accord with that hypothesis, variations in respondent ethnicity (Studies 1 and 2) and in immigrant ethnicity (Study 3) were systematically related to the respondents' opinion on that issue. Moreover, the effect of in-group-out-group bias was independent of perceived reasoned economic and legal considerations that underlay the respondents' opinion.
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