Can political speech foster tolerance of immigrants?

Politicians frequently use political speech to foster hostility toward immigrants, a strategy that shapes political preferences and behavior and feeds the success of the populist right. Whether political speech can be used to foster tolerance of immigrants, however, remains unexplored. We identify three mechanisms by which political speech could increase tolerance: (1) stressing in-group conceptions that highlight commonalities with immigrants; (2) emphasizing inclusiveness as an in-group norm; and (3) providing information that counters anti-immigrant stereotypes. Using quotes from US politicians in two survey experiments, we find that pro-immigrant speech that stresses inclusive norms or counters negative stereotypes about immigrants leads to more tolerant attitudes (but not behavior) toward immigrants. These effects are small and detectable only in large samples.

Self-Interest versus Group Interest and “Racialized” Social Constraint

This chapter focuses on racialized social constraint's ability to increase political action in support of the Democratic Party and its candidates. To demonstrate the existence of an in-group norm of active support, the chapter turns once again to data about the race of the interviewer. It then pushes deeper into the causal process of racialized social constraint using a lab-in-the-field experiment that can directly test the effect of racialized social pressure on blacks' willingness to engage in political action. Using the behavior of contributions to the Obama campaign as a black group-norm-consistent behavior, and using personal monetary incentives to defect from this norm to induce a self-interest conflict, the chapter varies whether black study participants must make their choice in front of another person who has made their own political choice clear, as well as whether that person is a racial in-group member. As a result, social pressure from other blacks uniquely reduces self-interested behavior and results in greater group-norm-consistent political behavior. Importantly, the chapter also shows that social pressure from other blacks only works to increase group-norm-consistent behavior. It does not encourage defection.

Insidious Assumptions

Pluralistic ignorance occurs when individuals misperceive a group norm and attempt to match the perceived—rather than actual—norm. Little is currently known about its role in the undergraduate classroom. The present research examined the pluralistic ignorance of studying behavior and its relationship with examination performance across four studies. Results suggested that students underestimate the amount of time their peers spend studying (Study 1), the extent of their estimation error is related to exam performance (Study 2), and that the relationship is mediated by a perceived lack of preparation (Study 3). Finally, a brief classroom intervention (Study 4) may be able to eliminate the pluralistic ignorance. Implications for the theory of pluralistic ignorance, and college teaching, are discussed.