Hybrid Lecture – Why Attitude Ambivalence Explains Tepid Support for Pro-Immigration Policies
Thursday 3 April 2025, 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm BST, online and London, UK
Abstract: Despite trends towards more positive attitudes toward immigrants and immigration (ATII), support for liberal immigration policy remains low in the West. Prior studies have explained this paradox by highlighting the asymmetry in issue importance between anti- and pro-immigration supporters. We contribute to explaining this puzzle by showing that ATII alone are ill-equipped to explain differences in support for pro-immigration policy because immigration policy involves competing interests, namely the national interest as well as the interests of immigrants. We hypothesise that H1: individuals who care about the interests of immigrants experience ambivalence when evaluating liberal immigration policies, where ambivalence is defined as being conflicted over an issue because of simultaneous positive and negative evaluations of that issue; and H2: that this ambivalence dampens support for such policies. To test our hypotheses we will conduct an online survey experiment using a representative sample of the UK population. The experiment is designed to induce issue ambivalence among respondents prior to eliciting responses about immigration policy preferences. Our findings will give new theoretical and empirical insight into why support for liberal immigration policies remains tepid, despite seemingly positive attitudes toward immigrants and immigration.
Presenter Bio: Vicky is an early career Leverhulme fellow in Sociology at the University of Essex. She is currently researching how generational replacement and the changing educational composition of the population interact to shape changes in attitudes towards immigrants.
Find more information and book your free place here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/social-policy/events/Seminars/The-International-Social-and-Public-Policy-seminar-series
This event will be held online and at OLD 2.21, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London, UK.