The Ontogeny of Attitudes Toward Migrants

• Published in: Developmental science 2025-03, Vol.28 (2), p.e13599
• Main Authors: Santhanagopalan, Radhika, Hok, Hannah, Shaw, Alex, Kinzler, Katherine D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Acculturation; Adolescent; Attitude; Child; Emigration and Immigration; Female; Humans; Male; Politics; Transients and Migrants - psychology; United States
• ISSN: 1363-755X; 1467-7687; 1467-7687
• DOI: 10.1111/desc.13599

Immigration is among the most pressing issues of our time. Important questions concern the psychological mechanisms that contribute to attitudes about immigration. Whereas much is known about adults' immigration attitudes, the developmental antecedents of these attitudes are not well understood. Across three studies (N = 616), we examined US children's attitudes toward migrants by introducing them to two novel groups of people: one native to an island and the other migrants to the island. The migrants varied by (1) Migrant Status: migrants came from a resource-poor island (fleers) or a resource-rich island (pursuers); and (2) Acculturation Style: migrants assimilated to the native culture (assimilated) or retained their original cultural identity (separated). We studied a range of children's immigration attitudes: children's preferences, resource allocations, and perceptions of solidarity between groups (Experiment 1), children's conferral of voting power (Experiment 2a) and political representation (Experiment 2b), and children's beliefs about political representation when an equal government was not possible (Experiment 3). Overall, children showed a bias toward natives, but the degree of their bias depended on the type of migrant they were evaluating. Children generally favored Pursuers over Fleers, and Assimilated migrants over Separated migrants. In some cases, the intersection of these factors mattered: children expressed a specific preference for Separated Pursuers and a specific penalization of Separated Fleers. These studies reveal the early developmental roots of immigration attitudes, particularly as they relate to political power and the intersecting forces of migrant status and acculturation.