Attitudes Toward Migrants

Today, we’re looking at two articles that look at migrants. First, Santhanagopalan, Hok, Shaw & Kinzler (2024) published “The Ontogeny of Attitudes Toward Migrants“ in Developmental Science. Here are some excerpts:

Immigration is among the most pressing issues of our time. Important questions concern the psychological mechanisms that contribute to attitudes about immigration. Whereas much is known about adults’ immigration attitudes, the developmental antecedents of these attitudes are not well understood. Across three studies (N = 616), we examined US children's attitudes toward migrants by introducing them to two novel groups of people: one native to an island and the other migrants to the island. The migrants varied by (1) Migrant Status: migrants came from a resource-poor island (fleers) or a resource-rich island (pursuers); and (2) Acculturation Style: migrants assimilated to the native culture (assimilated) or retained their original cultural identity (separated). We studied a range of children's immigration attitudes: children's preferences, resource allocations, and perceptions of solidarity between groups (Experiment 1), children's conferral of voting power (Experiment 2a) and political representation (Experiment 2b), and children's beliefs about political representation when an equal government was not possible (Experiment 3). Overall, children showed a bias toward natives, but the degree of their bias depended on the type of migrant they were evaluating. Children generally favored Pursuers over Fleers, and Assimilated migrants over Separated migrants. In some cases, the intersection of these factors mattered: children expressed a specific preference for Separated Pursuers and a specific penalization of Separated Fleers. These studies reveal the early developmental roots of immigration attitudes, particularly as they relate to political power and the intersecting forces of migrant status and acculturation.

Our explanation coding in Experiment 1 corroborates this possibility, with children saying that natives “own” the island more than migrants. Our work also extends this past work by demonstrating that the bias in favor of natives extends to a range of different domains, including children's preferences, conferral of voting power, and political representation. Nevertheless, we also observed boundaries in children's native bias. Although children generally preferred natives, believed natives were better leaders, and readily elected natives into political office, they did not show a native bias when considering how certain resources (e.g., access to schools) should be distributed. Children may be more willing to privilege natives for domains that are not seen as basic needs or rights.

Critically, the relative degree of children's native bias varied depending on the type of migrant being evaluated. Children generally favored Pursuers over Fleers and Assimilated migrants over Separated migrants. Children's preference for Pursuers may be explained by a preference for wealthy targets. Indeed by nature, concepts of voluntary and involuntary migration are intimately tied to economic status in that involuntary migrants are typically associated with fleeing, refugee status, and/or coming from resource-poor regions, whereas voluntary migrants are typically associated with economic migrants coming from relatively more resource-rich regions in pursuit of opportunity.

Moreover, the intersection of migrant status and acculturation style affected children's evaluations, which is something that cannot be neatly explained by children merely tracking the wealth of the migrants. In some cases, children preferred those migrants who did not assimilate (e.g., Separated Pursuers were more liked and were believed to be better leaders), and in other cases children penalized migrants who did not assimilate (e.g., Separated Fleers were conferred less voting power and political representation, and children believed there would be less intergroup group solidarity between natives and these kinds of migrants). There are a few interpretations for why these migrants are treated so differently. As noted, children may believe that migrants “owe” the natives and this belief could be especially strong for fleers (compared to pursuers) who may be perceived as being more indebted to the natives. Relatedly, fleers may be perceived as lower status than pursuers, and children may expect lower-status groups to conform to a greater extent than higher-status groups. The same behavior (e.g., separation) may be interpreted differently based on the migrant's identity: separation may be interpreted positively when enacted by a higher-status group compared to when it is enacted by a lower-status group. Future research should aim to further delineate these possibilities and to examine children's intersectional beliefs about different behaviors from different migrant groups.

Overall, these attitudes remained relatively stable across our sample of 4–10-year-olds. Children's precocious attention to migrants may be a product of a basic attention to ownership, first-possession, and ingroup cues that are further shaped into more nuanced attitudes by explicit or passive messaging in children's local environment (media, home, and school environments). Indeed, changing demographics in the United States also mean many young children have more direct exposure to migrant classmates. Despite the relatively stable effects across ages, we did observe some notable age-related changes. Compared to older children, younger children at times showed a stronger preference for Pursuers and Assimilated migrants. Younger children may be using independent cues of migrant status and assimilation, considerations that with age may become more intersectional, leading to increasingly nuanced and calibrated responses to different kinds of migrants. On the other hand, it is also possible that as with other social attitude domains, older children may tend to prioritize equality, particularly on explicit measures (as seen, though open questions concern whether younger and older children may look similar on implicit measures). Our explanation coding in Experiment 1 offers initial insight into the kinds of considerations children may think through with increasing age, including seeing natives as “saviors” or as being “nicer.” These findings raise exciting future areas of inquiry regarding both the basic processes from which children's migrant attitudes originate, as well as the multiple layers of social and cultural learning involved in their evolving migrant attitudes.

Children could have had no systematic intuitions about different kinds of migrants, seeing the four migrant types as undifferentiated from one another, or they might have simply and systematically preferred the natives on all measures. Yet, we demonstrate that children are selective about when they do or do not privilege migrants, both in comparison to natives but also in comparison to other migrant groups. This selectivity is based on dual and intersecting considerations of where migrants come from and whether they assimilate to the natives’ culture. Further, beyond examining children's preferences and trait evaluations, these findings extend to other important domains of life (i.e., political power), thus capturing a broader spectrum of children's immigration cognition.

Our analyses highlight potentially relevant factors that additional research might investigate further. First, we find preliminary evidence that demographic factors (e.g., political orientation, parent education, and socioeconomic status) influence children's developing immigration attitudes; children from families with less formal education, less wealth, and whose parents identified as conservative, were more likely to favor natives. Second, an examination of children's explanations revealed factors (e.g., perceptions of a native savior complex, or native ownership over the land) that may be relevant in forming children's construal of migrants. 

Not all migrants are perceived as equal in children's eyes. Children confer more privileges upon some migrants over others. We find that children engage in dual considerations of both where a migrant comes from, and whether migrants assimilate. Indeed, these patterns emerge both in children's general attitudes, as well as in the specific, highly consequential domain of politics. Together, these findings offer novel insights into children's immigration attitudes and into the role of migrant status and acculturation on children's developing immigration cognition.

I found this study interesting for several reasons. First, the fact that children as young as 4 are making distinctions illustrates the importance of the topic. Second, it’s interesting that they use multiple dimensions in their judgments – both reasons for immigrating and degree of assimilation. The next study turns to adults. Soter, Ramirez & Sinnott-Armstrong (2025) published “US Citizens’ Judgments of Moral Transgressions against Fellow Citizens, Refugees, and Undocumented Immigrants” in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Here’s the edited abstract:

Prior work shows that people are often more sensitive to moral transgressions that target ingroup members than outgroup members. But does that depend on which groups are involved? We investigate how lifelong U.S. citizen participants make judgments about moral transgressions that target fellow lifelong citizens, compared with refugees or undocumented immigrants. Across five studies (N = 1,953), we find that participants overall judge moderate transgressions targeting refugees and undocumented immigrants to be more wrong than those targeting fellow lifelong citizens. This pattern emerges specifically for moderate-severity transgressions but occurs across physical harm, emotional harm, deception, fairness, and property violations. Responses are predicted by political orientation; more liberal participants show the pattern more than conservative participants. We find mediational and experimental evidence for perceived vulnerability/welfare and sympathy toward groups as partial mechanisms: People judge it to be worse to harm more victims they perceive to be more vulnerable. 

Whereas children favor natives, when adults are asked to judge moral transgressions, they favor immigrants, especially if they are more politically liberal. It’s clear the adults are using such criteria as vulnerability. It’s also clear that political orientation, parent education, and SES impact children’s judgments and likely influence the adults as well. I thought these findings were especially interesting given the numbers of immigrants who initially live in lower SES communities.