Does Information Change Attitudes Towards Immigrants? Evidence from Survey Experiments

Does Information Change Attitudes Towards Immigrants? Evidence from Survey Experiments suggests that the dissemination of accurate information about immigration can help to reduce biased attitudes and change policy preferences. The authors analyzed a representative cross-country sample of 19,000 people, half of whom were prompted with accurate information about immigration and half of whom were not. The probability that the "treatment group" felt that there were too many immigrants was 12 percentage points lower than those who did not receive the information. The authors also performed a similar online experiment with 800 participants, where half of the sample received some general information about immigration, while the other half did not. Members of the treatment group "update(d) their beliefs about immigrants, and they donate(d) more money to a pro-immigrant charity."  Interestingly, self-described right wing or Republican participants "respond(ed) more strongly to the information treatment, both in terms of their views on immigrants and in terms of their policy preferences." (Abstract by Prof. Nick Montalto) 

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