New findings suggest that the belief that restricting immigration is “not racist” reflects a defensive form of ingroup identity, rather than concern for one’s ingroup. The study, published in the journal Political Psychology, revealed that the belief that it is not racist to support immigration restrictions was linked to collective narcissism, support for intergroup hostility, and support for the alt-right.
A number of past studies have explored citizens’ attitudes toward immigration. A 2018 study by Kaufmann revealed that the majority of people in the United States and 18 other countries feel that supporting restrictions on immigration for cultural reasons is not racist. Instead, people view it as a reflection of racial self-interest, or concern for one’s ingroup.
Researchers Aleksandra Cichocka and her team conducted a study to uncover the psychological characteristics that are tied to this belief that immigration restrictions are not racist. The study authors proposed that if the belief is motivated by concern for one’s ingroup, it should be associated with ingroup identification — attachment and solidarity with one’s ingroup. But if this belief is motivated by a desire to defend the privileged position of one’s ingroup, it should be associated with collective narcissism — the assumption that one’s ingroup deserves special treatment.
“The idea for the study came from a talk Eric Kaufmann gave at Kent,” explained Cichocka, a reader in political psychology. “We were fascinated by his findings that most people, across various countries, did not see preferences for immigration restrictions as racist. Rather, most respondents would agree that wanting to restrict immigration to slow down ethnocultural change is merely an expression of self-interest.”
“In his analysis, Kaufmann focused on how party affiliation or ideology differentiate those who believe immigration restrictions are racist versus not. We decided to check what intergroup attitudes are related to these different beliefs. Are they related to a concern for one’s nation or ethnic group? And would they translate into hostility or aggressiveness towards newcomers?”
Four studies were conducted among different samples from the UK, Poland, and the U.S. In each study, the participants read a statement describing a member of their ingroup supporting a proposal to curb immigration. This ingroup member was described as someone who “identifies with her group and its history.” After reading the statement, participants indicated whether they felt this person was racist, not racist but racially self-interested, or whether they did not know.
In every sample, participants were more likely to say that the person was racially self-interested than racist. And in all four samples, collective narcissism was consistently linked to a greater likelihood of thinking the person was not racist.
By contrast, there was conflicting evidence for the link between ingroup identification and belief that the person supporting immigration restrictions was not racist. Ingroup identification was unrelated to this belief in the UK study, negatively related to this belief in the Polish study, and positively related to this belief among the two U.S. samples. However, the positive relationships found in the U.S. studies were smaller than the positive relationships between collective narcissism and belief that immigration restrictions are not racist.
“Overall, our results suggest that viewing the protection of one’s group’s share of the population as mere racial self-interest might be an expression of a defensive need to protect the ingroup image and privileges, more so than of attachment to the ingroup and its members,” the researchers wrote in their study.
In three of the studies, the researchers further found evidence that believing that immigration restrictions are not racist may have implications on citizens’ behavior. The Polish sample was asked to read a scenario describing an ingroup member who was in conflict with a new resident in town who belonged to a minority group. Respondents who believed that immigration restrictions were not racist were more likely to justify using collective violence against the new resident. And among the two American samples, those who felt that immigration restrictions were not racist were more likely to hold positive views of the alt-right — a far-right political movement connected to White nationalism and hostility toward minorities.
Cichocka and her team said that their findings show that while most people may think that restricting immigration for cultural reasons is not racist, this belief itself is aligned with hostility toward immigrants and support for supremacist social movements.
“People can disagree what is and what is not racist,” Cichocka told PsyPost. “Therefore, we deliberately refrained from defining racism, instead focusing on the psychological correlates of people’s beliefs about what is racist versus not. We found that even if most people agree that restricting immigration is not racist, this belief may still be linked to overt intergroup hostility or support for far-right movements.”
The authors noted that future studies might further investigate the repercussions of believing that restrictions on immigration are not racist. For example, a future study could examine whether this belief might dissuade people from calling out discriminatory behaviors.
“The goal of Kaufmann’s project was to explicitly compare how people would view similar beliefs expressed by ethnic minorities versus majorities,” Cichocka said. “In our studies, we focused on factors related to beliefs about immigration restrictions among members of dominant ethno-national groups. Future research should examine whether beliefs about immigration restrictions are related to similar in-group and out-group attitudes when measured among ethnic minorities.”
The study, “‘Not Racist, But…’: Beliefs About Immigration Restrictions, Collective Narcissism, and Justification of Ethnic Extremism”, was authored by Aleksandra Cichocka, Konrad Bocian, Mikolaj Winiewski, and Flavio Azevedo.