What Immigration Issues Do Americans Hold Sacred? A Psychological Journey Into American Attitudes Toward Immigrants
The report, “What Immigration Issues Do Americans Hold Sacred? A Psychological Journey into Attitudes Towards Immigrants,” digs deeply into how respondents think about immigration issues through the lens of sacred values, threats, norms, and social identity. Download the full report here.
Undertaken in partnership with the Center for Inclusion and Belonging at the American Immigration Council, we ran a nationally representative survey to assess whether immigration issues are considered sacred (e.g., non-negotiable moral rules rather than values that can be deliberated) by Americans today, and if so, why? This report describes sacralization patterns across 14 immigration issues and examines Americans' mental models on the subject, revealing how social identity, perceptions of immigration threat, and other aspects of one's experience and worldview influence sacralization of immigration stances.
Co-authored by Nichole Argo, PhD (Over Zero) and Kate Jassin, PhD.