Current Projects
How New Migration Can Improve Attitudes towards Older Immigrant Groups: Evidence from Chile
How should we expect host citizens’ attitudes about one migrant group to change when another migrant group enters the scene? I argue that public opinion about immigrants are reference frame dependent, meaning that evaluations about one group are made relative to other salient groups with which a person is familiar. This implies that a new group’s arrival can lead local citizens to re-evaluate their opinions about other already present immigrant groups, with new groups providing contrast and redirecting negative attention formerly given to others. As a result, a new migrant group's arrival can decrease prejudice towards other immigrant groups living in an area.
I test this argument using the case of Chile, a long-standing host of Peruvian migrants which received over 350 thousand Venezuelan migrants between 2016 and 2019. I pair an original measure of group salience with a uniquely rich panel of group-specific attitudes from the Chilean Longitudinal Social Survey. I show that Chilean survey respondents exhibited a dramatic decline in negative attitudes toward Peruvian migrants living in their country as Venezuelan migration increased in salience during this period. This suggests that attitudes about specific immigrant groups are strongly influenced by the salience of other groups in a society, and demonstrates that prejudice can decline more quickly and more widely than many existing theories would presume.
How New Migration Crises Can Affect Preferences for Existing Migrant Groups: Haitians and Venezuelans in Northern Brazil
Using original conjoint experiments, controlled case comparisons and qualitative fieldwork conducted in Northern Brazil, I show that local citizens' ratings of Haitian migrants is higher in regions of Brazil that received greater numbers of migrants from Venezuela. This indicates that in some situations a new migrant group's arrival may actually improve opinions about other stigmatized migrant groups.
Paper available by request
Positive Media Portrayals and Empathetic Responses to Refugees
with Christopher Karpowitz and Joshua Gubler
Is empathetic media effective in shifting readers’ attitudes toward refugee policies? We present the results of two survey experiments conducted in the United Kingdom that presented respondents with empathetic news articles about refugees. We find that empathetic appeals induce empathy in media consumers and encourage slightly more open attitudes toward refugee admission, but not for individuals with strong preexisting prejudice against refugees. Survey respondents are also more willing to engage in political action in favor of refugees. These effects hold regardless of the portrayed refugees' national or religious background.