Quantity and Quality

Chapter 1 describes the emergence in the 1920s of two scientific approaches to human population. The first, rooted in the natural sciences, suggested that the world was headed for overpopulation, while the second, rooted in vital statistics, suggested that the countries of North America and Western Europe were instead facing imminent depopulation. It demonstrates that the two scientific perspectives supported opposing positions in debates over birth control legalization and immigration restriction. Natural scientists and statisticians from the Americas, Europe, and Asia nonetheless came together in 1928 to form the International Union for the Scientific Investigation of Population Problems (IUSIPP; today the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population or IUSSP). This chapter contends that, although the IUSIPP was unable to survive the rise of fascism in Europe, the political and scientific struggles that tore it apart also laid the foundation for demography in the United States.

“Not racist, but...” Beliefs about immigration restrictions, collective narcissism and justification of ethnic extremism

Surveys show that a majority of people across countries believe that seeking lower immigration to help maintain the majority group’s population share is racially self-interested, rather than racist. If this belief indeed reflects in-group concern, it should be linked to in-group identification—a positive attachment to and solidarity with one’s group. However, if it is a defensive strategy to protect the in-group’s privileged position, this belief should be linked to collective narcissism. In four studies, we examined the associations between immigration restriction beliefs and dominant (national or White) identities. Relative to in-group identification, national narcissism (Studies 1: UK, N=220, and 2: Poland, N=1285) and ethnic narcissism (Studies 3a: US, N=1516, and 3b: US, N=2402) were stronger predictors of a belief that it is not racist (vs. racist) to want immigration restrictions. This belief was also associated with justifying collective violence against migrants (Study 2) and supporting the alt-right (Studies 3a-3b).