Changing Americans’ Attitudes about Immigration: Using Moral Framing to Bolster Factual Arguments

• Author: Chrystal Redekopp,Mashail Malik,Jan G. Voelkel,Robb Willer
• DOI: 10.1177/00027162221083877
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Politicization

ANNALS, AAPSS, 700, March 2022 73

DOI: 10.1177/00027162221083877

Changing

Americans’

Attitudes about

Immigration:

Using Moral

Framing to

Bolster Factual

Arguments

By

JAN G. VOELKEL,

MASHAIL MALIK,

CHRYSTAL REDEKOPP,

and

ROBB WILLER

1083877ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYCHANGING AMERICANS’ ATTITUDES ABOUT IMMIGRATION

research-article2022

Our tendency to interpret facts in ways that are consist-

ent with our prior beliefs impedes evidence-based

attempts to persuade partisans to change their views

on pressing societal issues such as immigration.

Accordingly, most prior work finds that favorable infor-

mation about the impact of immigration has little or no

influence on policy preferences. Here, we propose that

appealing to individuals’ moral values can bolster the

persuasive power of informational interventions. Across

three experiments (total N = 4,616), we find that an

argument based on the value of in-group loyalty, which

emphasized that immigrants are critical to America’s

economic strength, combined with information about

the economic impact of legal immigration, significantly

increased Americans’ support for legal immigration.

We also find a significant effect of the moral compo-

nent of this message alone, even without factual infor-

mation. These results show that moral arguments can

strengthen the persuasiveness of informational appeals.

Keywords: immigration; persuasion; morality; infor-

mation; moral reframing

In the last decade, heated debates over immi-

gration policy have featured prominently in the

American political landscape. Many Americans

and Western Europeans view immigration as one

of the most important problems facing their

country (Blinder 2015; Jones 2019), with more

people favoring fewer new immigrants over allow-

ing more to enter (Connor and Krogstad 2018).

Jan G. Voelkel is a PhD student in the Department of

Sociology at Stanford University.

Mashail Malik is a postdoctoral fellow and incoming

assistant professor in the Department of Government at

Harvard University.

Chrystal Redekopp is the research director of the

Polarization and Social Change Lab and the Laboratory

for Social Research at Stanford University.

Robb Willer is a professor of sociology, psychology, and

organizational behavior and the director of the

Polarization and Social Change Lab at Stanford

University.

Correspondence: mashailmalik@fas.harvard.edu