Existing research on immigration has highlighted the close relationship between the potential threat posed by immigrants and the development of anti-immigrant sentiment among natives. However, immigrants also benefit the host society, and we know little about the effects of perceived benefits on attitudes towards immigration. We explore how exposure to negative and positive information about immigrants shapes people's attitudes towards immigrants through a vignette survey experiment. Our results revealed that respondents’ hostility towards immigrants decreased when exposed to positive information, but their attitudes did not necessarily change when they were exposed to negative information. Interestingly, these results were similarly observed in four major issue domains discussed in existing studies—jobs, financial burden, culture and physical safety. Furthermore, the effects of exposure to positive information were not modified by respondents’ partisanship, race, education or exposure to immigrants. These results suggest that pro-immigrant rhetoric can be effective in changing people's attitudes towards immigration.

中文翻译：

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负面和正面信息对移民态度的影响

现有的移民研究强调了移民带来的潜在威胁与当地人反移民情绪的发展之间的密切关系。然而，移民也有利于东道国社会，我们对感知利益对移民态度的影响知之甚少。我们通过一个小插曲调查实验探讨了接触有关移民的负面和正面信息如何影响人们对移民的态度。我们的研究结果表明，当接触到正面信息时，受访者对移民的敌意减少了，但当他们接触到负面信息时，他们的态度并没有必然改变。有趣的是，在现有研究中讨论的四个主要问题领域——工作、经济负担、文化和人身安全。此外，接触正面信息的影响不会因受访者的党派、种族、教育或接触移民而改变。这些结果表明，支持移民的言论可以有效改变人们对移民的态度。