Ethnic Change and Polarization over Immigration In the American Public

ABSTRACT

This article explores the interplay between ethnic change and individual psychology in shaping

mass opinion on immigration. Recent research highlights a “personality cleavage” underlying

the left-right divide in American politics. Extending this into the domain of immigration, we

argue this cleavage should be an important factor shaping citizens’ reactions to ethnic change.

Using national survey data and a national survey experiment, we demonstrate that uncertainty

aversion moderates the effect of perceived and actual ethnic change on citizens’ immigration

attitudes. Our analysis reveals that ethnic change polarizes citizens by personality as those averse

to uncertainty feel heightened cultural threat from ethnic change, while those open to uncertainty

and novelty feel less threatened. As such traits are associated with left-right identifications, our

results suggest that polarization of the American public over immigration, rather than being a

mere product of top-down elite influence, is significantly driven by the interaction of citizen and

context.

Word Count: 8,460Keywords: immigration, public opinion, ethnic change, polarization, personality, ideology

INTRODUCTION

The United States is growing more ethnically diverse each year, with steady immigration

and a rapidly growing Hispanic population altering the sociocultural landscape surrounding

many American citizens. What are the consequences of ethnic change for the politics of

immigration in the United States? More specifically, what are the effects of ethnic change on

citizens’ opinions on immigration? At present, the opinion literature on immigration comes up

surprisingly short in providing a satisfactory answer to these questions. The lion’s share of

studies in the opinion research analyzing Americans’ immigration policy preferences focus on

the effects of the size of, rather than the change in, the immigrant populations surrounding

citizens. Beyond the evident limitation of not directly addressing ethnic change, the results from

studies addressing the effects of the size of immigrant populations are notoriously inconclusive.

While lay intuition may suggest that immigration-driven ethnic change across the nation may

explain observable patterns of nativist resentment and anti-immigrant sentiment among the

American public, the empirical research has yet to establish a strong connection between

growing immigrant populations and individual opposition to immigration.

In this article, we engage the question of the impact of ethnic change on mass opinion on

immigration and offer two key innovations over the standard approach taken in past research.

First, we explore the effect of over-time growth in, rather than the size of, immigrant populations

as the key feature of these populations responsible for driving public opinion. Second, in contrast

to previous research which largely assumes that the effects of ethnic context are uniform across

all citizens, we offer a novel framework that explores heterogeneity in the effects of ethnic

change on citizens’ attitudes toward immigration. Recent research demonstrates that a

significant portion of the variance in ideological orientations in the contemporary American

2

public can be explained by differences on a small set of core personality traits (e.g. Hetherington

and Weiler 2009; Jost et al. 2003; Mondak 2010). Extending this perspective to immigration, we

argue that this “personality cleavage” should be highly influential in shaping how citizens

respond to ethnic change with important consequences for polarization of opinion across the left-

right divide in American politics.

This article develops the differential adaptation hypothesis, which argues that substantial

ethnic change should serve as an environmental determinant of opinion on immigration, but that

citizens should react differently to ethnic change conditional on their relative aversion or

attraction to epistemic uncertainty and novelty. The rapid influx of members of racial and ethnic

out-groups can be viewed as threatening to existing cultural institutions, and implies uncertainty

in one’s environment and one’s interaction with fellow citizens. As Jost and Hunyady (2005)

note, “There is a good match between needs to reduce uncertainty” and the experience of

institutional change as threatening, because “preserving the status quo allows one to maintain

what is familiar while rejecting the uncertain prospect of social change” (p. 262). Such change

could, however, also be viewed in a positive light, as diversity and opportunity enhancing. As

Gerber et al. (2010) argue with respect to institutional change generally, “It follows that this

attraction to novelty and tolerance for complexity encourage not only overall liberalism, but also

support for liberal social and economic policies, which typically involve new programs or

interventions that overturn existing practices” (p. 116). According to the differential adaptation

hypothesis, there should be differential responsiveness to rapid demographic change across

personality types, such that the uncertainty averse should see ethnic change as threatening, while

those comfortable with uncertainty and attracted to novelty should find such changes desirable.

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We test the differential adaptation hypothesis in two steps. In Study 1, using the 2005

CID national survey and data from the U.S. Census Bureau, we demonstrate that traits related to

uncertainty aversion moderate the effect of local ethnic change on the perception that immigrants

pose a cultural threat. In Study 2, we report the results of an internet-based national survey

experiment that manipulated perceptions of ethnic change. The data from this study strongly

reinforce the cross-sectional findings from Study 1—namely, that citizens with a strong aversion

to uncertainty are significantly more culturally threatened than their uncertainty-tolerant

counterparts by induced perceptions of ethnic change. In addition to this core finding, we also

demonstrate the political relevance of the interplay between personality and ethnic change

through the estimation of a structural equation model linking perceptions of cultural threat to

support for restrictive immigration policies. The results from our analyses demonstrate that the

differential experience of cultural threat, across personality, in response to perceived or actual

local ethnic change ultimately results in a substantial deepening of polarization on immigration

policy within the American public.

In total, this article makes several important contributions. First, it contributes to the

opinion literature on immigration. We move beyond group-size-based measures of ethnic context

that tend to dominate the contextual research and instead focus on ethnic change as the principle

feature of citizens’ ethnic context driving their opinions on immigration. Further, we reconcile

tension between intergroup threat and contact theories by demonstrating heterogeneity in the

effects of ethnic change, with change showing opposite effects across citizen types. And last, we

demonstrate that the effects of ethnic change on citizens’ policy preferences are mediated by

cultural threat perceptions, thus offering the opinion literature a mediated-moderated effects

model of opinion formation on immigration. Beyond these specific contributions, we believe our

4

paper also makes a more general contribution to the study of public opinion and political

behavior. By assessing the interplay of large-scale, objective contextual processes and individual

psychological factors, we fuse the macro with the micro into an integrated approach for

understanding political behavior.

IMMIGRATION, ETHNIC CONTEXT, AND PUBLIC OPINION

The ethnic composition of citizens’ residential environment has long stood as a primary

factor hypothesized to account for public opinion on immigration. Underlying the research on the

contextual sources of opinion on immigration rests the issue of identifying which aspect of

immigrant populations is responsible for driving public opinion. A substantial body of opinion

research exists that explores the effect of the size of the immigrant population surrounding

citizens on their immigration policy preferences. The racial or power threat hypothesis (Blalock

1967; Key 1949), when translated from White-Black relations to the case of immigration, argues

that anti-immigrant sentiment and policy support will be greater among citizens residing in more

immigrant heavy areas (Hopkins 2010). This line of opinion research, however, has generated

notoriously mixed results, with some studies finding limited evidence in support of the power

threat hypothesis (Campbell, Wong, and Citrin 2006; Tolbert and Grummel 2003), other studies

finding that residing near large immigrant populations reduces anti-immigrant sentiment and

policy support (Fetzer 2000; Hood and Morris 1997), and the bulk of the research finding that

the size of local immigrant populations exerts no significant effect on citizens’ immigration

policy preferences (Cain, Citrin, and Wong 2000; Citrin et al. 1990; Citrin, Reingold, Walters,

and Green 1990; Dixon and Rosenbaum 2004; Taylor 1998).

While several factors have been proposed to explain the inconsistency of results for

group-size based measures of ethnic context, and the relative empirical weakness of the power

5

threat hypothesis (e.g. degree of contact, Hood and Morris 2000; residential segregation, Rocha

and Espino 2008), they ignore perhaps its most defining aspect, which is its focus on the size,

rather than the growth, of immigrant populations. Hopkins (2010) argues that American citizens

are surprisingly unaware of their demographic surroundings, and that occupational and

residential segregation limit the visibility of immigrants to American citizens. Citing a principal

axiom of prospect theory (Kahneman and Tversky 1979), Hopkins reasons that while the average

citizen may filter out vast quantities of information streaming in from their environment,

significant changes in their environment are more likely to capture attention. Given these

considerations, Hopkins concludes that while contemporary levels of ethnic diversity may elude

citizens’ attention, significant changes in the level of ethnic diversity are less likely to evade

notice. Hopkins (2010) argument for focusing on immigrant growth, rather than population size,

is strongly supported by the results from his analysis of time series cross sectional survey data, as

well as by other recent research on immigration policy and opinion (Alexseev 2006; Citrin et al.

1990; Newman 2012; Newman et al. 2012; Newman and Johnson 2012).

Beyond the limitations of the group size framework, extant research implicitly assumes

that context exerts a uniform effect across all citizens. While the literature has seen the

emergence of a new line of contextual studies exploring the conditional effects of ethnic context

(Branton and Jones 2005; Hood and Morris 2000; Hopkins 2010; Oliver and Mendelberg 2000;

Rocha and Espino 2008), this work restricts its focus to how the effects of local minority

populations may be conditional upon other contextual-level or broader environmental factors.

What is missing from the opinion research is an attempt to move the literature forward by

engaging the issue of whether important differences across citizens shape how they react to

factors operative within their ethnic context.

6

PERSONALITY AND DIFFERENTIAL ADAPTATION

We pursue individual-level heterogeneity in reactions to ethnic change with a practical

purpose, namely, with respect to its implications for the politics of immigration. The extent to

which individual differences in response matter for American politics is conditional on the

degree to which such differences align with politically relevant divisions. More specifically,

they will matter if they align with the left-right dimension of American politics, and thus map

onto elite-level political conflict. We begin by considering how citizens who identify with the

left and right in American politics differ psychologically with respect to their stable traits, and

how these personality differences should shape interpretation and responses to ethnic change.

Personality Differences in American Politics

Recent research converges on the proposition that citizens identifying with the left and

right in American politics differ with respect to their relative aversion or attraction to epistemic

uncertainty and novelty. The idea is that conservatism, in its emphasis on institutional stability,

is palliative for individuals who find uncertainty and change aversive, as it lends stability and

predictability to one’s social environment. In contrast, liberalism’s emphasis on institutional

change and diversity is appealing to citizens who are comfortable with uncertainty, and who seek

out novelty and new experiences (Jost et al. 2003; Jost, Federico and Napier 2009). In political

science, supportive evidence comes from studies of the “Big Five” personality traits (Carney et

al. 2008; Gerber et al. 2010; Mondak 2010; Mondak and Halperin 2008). Such work suggests

that, of these five traits, “openness to experience” and “conscientiousness” most reliably

distinguish the political right from the left. As Mondak (2010) explains, “the openness and

conscientiousness hypotheses are best understood in terms of traditional views in which

liberalism corresponds with a willingness to see government tackle new and varied problems,

7

while conservatism implies a more cautious approach in which presumption favors the status

quo” (p. 127). As Gerber et al. (2010) explain, openness to experience corresponds with a

general attraction to novelty, while conscientiousness is associated with rule and norm-

following, and “socially prescribed impulse control’ (p. 115; see also Carney et al. 2008).

This work largely converges with other recent research in psychology proper. Jost et al.

(2003) report the results of a meta-analysis of over eighty studies, and find that conservative

political orientations are strongly associated with several indicators related to epistemic needs for

certainty, such as “intolerance of ambiguity” (Frenkel-Brunswik 1949). Federico and Goren

(2009) find that an aversion to uncertainty is associated with conservative self-identifications.

Hetherington and Weiler (2009) find that needs for order and certainty constitute a highly

influential basis for party identification in American politics since at least 2004.

Overall, this body of work suggests that left and right orientations in contemporary

American mass politics can be distinguished in terms of relative attraction or aversion to

epistemic uncertainty, and thus a general dislike or preference for novelty and change.

Implications for Responses to Ethnic Change

The psychological divide between the left and right in the American mass public is

important as it implies the potential for differential responses to immigration-driven ethnic

change. At its most basic level, immigration engenders intercultural contact. Such contact can

lead to a process of large-scale cultural change labeled acculturation (Redfield, Linton, and

Herskovits 1936; Castro 2003), where the original cultural patterns of either or both groups

become permanently altered by the transmission and fusion of culture. When triggered by

immigration, the process of acculturation can be characterized by the displacement of the ethno-

8

cultural status quo of the host community and the emergence of a more ethnically and culturally

diverse sociocultural landscape.

Psychological research on acculturation focuses on how individuals residing within

environments undergoing cultural change adapt to the over-time dislocation and replacement of

their habituated ethnic context. According to this literature, adaptation to one’s environment

involves both psychological and sociocultural components, with the former pertaining to feelings

of belonging to one’s community, social trust, and satisfaction with life (Berry and Sam 1997;

LaFromboise, Coleman, and Gerton 1993), and the later pertaining to the ability to effectively

interact and communicate with cultural outgroups (i.e., sociocultural competence) (Castro 2003;

La Fromboise et al. 1993; Ward and Rana-Deuba 1999). The acculturation literature contends

that individuals are susceptible to the experience of “culture shock” (Furnham and Bochner

1986; Oberg 1960) or “acculturative stress” (Berry 1970; Berry 1997) as their habituated

environment changes and they (potentially) fail to adapt to heightened levels of ethnic and

cultural diversity.

When brought together, we believe that the research on personality and politics and the

psychological research on acculturation hold an important implication for the politics of

immigration and ethnic change. Namely, these works suggest that the politically relevant

personality traits underlying the left-right divide will be relevant for the politics of immigration

because they will shape how individuals adapt to residing in environments undergoing

acculturation. The reactions of primary theoretical concern revolve around the feelings and

perceptions of cultural threat in response to immigration, which should be highly politically

consequential given that cultural threat is a pre-potent source of citizens’ immigration policy

9

preferences (Citrin et al. 1997; Espenshade and Calhoun 1993; Ha 2008; Hood and Morris 1997;

Sides and Citrin 2007; Sniderman et al. 2004).

The personality and acculturation frameworks suggest openness to, and indeed affinity

for, novelty and change, should lead citizens to find immigration-driven sociocultural changes

less culturally threatening and should thus engender positive adaptation to ethnic change and

heightened diversity. In contrast, dispositions associated with aversion to ambiguity and

uncertainty and a corresponding desire for stability and predictability in one’s social environment

should lead citizens to find ethnic changes aversive, thus fixating on the displacement of the

sociocultural status quo and negative adaptation to ethnic change. Indeed, extant research on

ethnic change argues that one principle consequence of the influx of ethnic minorities for white

residents, especially those who reside in previously white dominated areas, is that it creates

uncertainty about the identity and future of one’s community (Green, Strolovitch, and Wong

1998). In sum, we offer the differential adaptation hypothesis:

(H1) Ethnic change and citizen personality will interact to predict perceived cultural

threat from immigrants such that citizens low in needs for certainty will become

less culturally threatened by immigration as a function of ethnic change, while

those high in such needs will become more culturally threatened.

Furthermore, we argue that differential adaptation by personality should impact policy

preferences indirectly through cultural threat perceptions. To be sure, while our theoretical

approach departs from theories of racial or power threat by focusing on changes in the ethnic

composition of citizens’ environment as the principle feature of ethnic context driving opinion,

we take a cue from these theories by focusing on threat as a perceptual intermediary between

citizens’ context and their policy preferences. Applying this standing theoretical logic to our

10

theory, we offer the following second prediction concerning policy preferences over

immigration:

(H2) Ethnic change induced polarization of perceived cultural threat by personality will

mediate polarization of support for restrictive immigration policies, such that

citizens low in needs for certainty will become less supportive of restrictive policies,

while those high in such needs will become more supportive.

Finally, we consider theoretically and empirically the broader implications of these

dynamics, and argue that personality-driven partisan and ideological sorting in contemporary

U.S. politics, combined with hypotheses one and two, entails exacerbated partisan and

ideological polarization over immigration as a function of continuing ethnic change. If correct,

then the influx of immigrant populations into the United States, rather than leading to

convergence of opinion over the correct approaches to dealing with this issue, will further divide

the public along already existing lines of political conflict. Such polarization incentivizes

politicians to move to the extremes to score political points with core constituencies, forcing out

pragmatic approaches and solutions, and thus lowering the probability of genuine bipartisanship

and compromise across party lines, even as these issues increase in importance as a function of

such change. We represent our model and its potential political implications graphically in

Figure 1.

To test our hypotheses regarding differential adaptation and polarization we rely upon

secondary analysis of nationally representative survey data and analysis of an original national

survey experiment. We address these studies in turn.

11

Figure 1. Connecting Personality Processes to Polarization

Notes: The dashed, two-headed arrow is intended to represent an induced bivariate association between political orientations and immigration policy preferences (i.e. “partisan polarization”),

not the residual covariance of these constructs within the context of the structural model.

12

Epistemic Needs

Right-WingAffiliation

Ethnic Change

Perceived Threat

Anti-ImmigrantPolicy

Prefs

++

+

+

+(Induced

Polarization)

STUDY 1

Data

Our first study relies upon the 2006 United States Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy

Survey, conducted for the Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University by

International Communications Research (Howard, Gibson and Stolle 2005). The overall survey

consists of approximately 1,000 interviews collected door-to-door using a cluster sample design

intended to represent the adult population residing in occupied residential housing units.

Respondents were matched to county-level context data (e.g. change in the Hispanic population)

which we describe further below. In keeping with prior opinion research on immigration (e.g.

Brader, Valentino, and Suhay 2008; Campbell et al. 2006; Citrin et al. 1990), the present analysis

restricts its focus to N=905 non-Hispanic respondents in the survey.

Measures

Perceived Cultural Threat. In line with our theory, we expect ethnic change to influence

perceptions of the cultural threat posed by immigrants. To measure individual perceptions of

cultural threat, this analysis relied upon an item in the CID tapping whether respondents believe

that “America’s cultural life is undermined or enriched by people coming to live here from other

countries.” This item is comparable to measures of cultural threat in leading opinion research

(e.g., Citrin et al. 1997; Sniderman et al. 2004). This item has 11 response options, ranging from

0 (“cultural life undermined”) to 10 (“cultural life enriched”), and was recoded to range from 0

to 1 with higher values indicating greater perceived threat.

Objective change in local immigrant population. We measure the objective change in the

immigrant population of the respondent’s environment as the percentage change in the Hispanic

13

population in the respondent’s county of residence.1 Drawing upon data from the U.S. Census

Bureau, we obtained the percent Hispanic in each respondent’s county of residence in 1990 and

2000. To obtain the measure of change in this population in each county, we subtracted the

percentage of the county population which was Hispanic in 1990 from the percentage in 2000.2

The usage of a 10 year time frame is consistent with extant research analyzing the effects of

ethnic change on opinion and behavior (Alexseev 2006; Citrin et al. 1990; Green et al. 1998;

Hopkins 2010).

Personality. To measure uncertainty aversion, we rely on two items measuring

respondents’ levels of authoritarianism (r=.48). Both items asked respondents how much they

agree or disagree with a specific statement (5-points, from “Strongly agree” to “Strongly

disagree”). The first statement read, “What young people need most of all is strict discipline by

their parents.” The second statement read, “In preparing children for life, it is extremely

important that they learn to be obedient.” In recent work, scholars have theorized that

authoritarian attitudes and behaviors are derivative of more basic psychological needs for a well-

ordered and predictable environment (e.g. Duckitt 2001; Feldman 2003; Hetherington and

Weiler 2009; Jost et al. 2003; Stenner 2005). In a meta-analysis of over 80 previous studies, Jost

et al. (2003) find strong associations between epistemic needs and authoritarianism (see also

Hetherington and Weiler 2009; Van Hiel, Pandelaere and Duriez 2004).In addition to their

similarity to recent operationalizations of the construct (see, e.g., Hetherington and Suhay 2011;

1 We use the Hispanic population as the selected immigrant group to test our theory because Hispanics are the largest (Passel, Cohn, Lopez 2011) and arguably most salient immigrant group (Domke et al. 1999). Further, this decision is consistent with extant opinion research on immigration (Burns and Gimpel 2000; Citrin, Reingold, and Green 1990; Hood and Morris 1997; Rocha and Espino 2009; Stein, Post, and Rinden 2000), 2 One limitation of this measure is that the time period under which change is being observed goes from 1990 to 2000 rather than to 2006, which is the year in which our survey data was collected. This operationalization of county-level change is due to limitations in data availability, as the annual American Community Surveys (ACS) taken in between the Decennial Censuses, such as the 2006 ACS, do not have foreign born data available for many counties across the nation with smaller population sizes. In order to obtain data for each county in our data, we were restricted to usage of the 1990 and 2000 Decennial Censuses.

14

Hetherington and Weiler 2009), these items should distinguish respondents on the basis of

epistemic needs. Each item considers potential solutions to dealing with a dangerous or

uncertain world, more specifically, by adhering to established norms, rules and institutions, and

respecting legitimate authorities. As Duckitt (2001) argues, “A view of the world as dangerous,

unpredictable, and threatening…would activate the motivational goal of social control and

security. This motivational goal would be expressed in the collectivist sociocultural values of

conformity and traditionalism and in…authoritarian social attitudes” (p. 50).

Controls. We control for three additional indicators measured at the county-level. To

account for the predictions of power and economic threat hypotheses, we control for levels of

immigrants as the percent Hispanic of the county population in 2000, as well as data from the

U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics to obtain the unemployment rate within

each county in 2005. Finally, we control for the political culture of citizens’ counties of

residence with a variable measuring the proportion of the vote won by George W. Bush in each

county in the 2004 Presidential Election. This latter variable has been identified as a relevant

factor shaping opinion on policies concerning racial and ethnic minorities (Campbell et al. 2006).

At the individual level, we control for several additional factors, including age, gender, black

self-identification, educational attainment, income, nationalism, personal economic

retrospections, whether the respondent has friends and/or family members who are immigrants,

birth in the U.S., employment status, partisanship (higher values = more Republican), and

ideology (higher values = more conservative). All variables were recoded to range from zero to

one prior to analysis.

15

Analysis

We estimate the following regression for perceived cultural threat (Y) via restricted

maximum likelihood:

y ij=β0 j+β1 j AUTH ij+∑k=2

13

βk CONTROLkij+εij ; εij N (0 , σ 12)

β0 j=γ 00+γ01 ∆ HISP j+γ02%HISP j+γ03 BUSH j+γ 04%UNEMP j+δ0 j;δ 0 j N (0 , σ 22)

β1 j=γ10+γ11 ∆ HISP j+γ12 %HISP j+δ1 j ;δ 1 j N (0 , σ32)

In this model both the intercept of the individual-level equation and the marginal effect of

authoritarianism are modeled as a function of county-level predictors and normally distributed,

random disturbances. With respect to the marginal effect of authoritarianism, we can think of

this specification in terms of two cross-level interactions, one with the change in the county-level

Hispanic population from 1990 to 2000, and one with the percent Hispanic at the county level in

2000. We include the latter as a control to ensure that the dynamic we observe is due to change

per se, and not simply the overall percentage of Hispanics in a given county. We expect a

negative and significant coefficient on the Hispanic change variable (γ01¿, indicating that at low

levels of authoritarianism change in the ethnic composition of one’s social environment

decreases perceptions of cultural threat. Conversely, we expect a large and positive interaction

term between change and authoritarianism (γ11) such that ¿γ 11∨¿¿ γ 01∨¿, indicating that at high

levels of authoritarianism, ethnic change entails an increase in perceptions of cultural threat.

These dynamics are conceptually equivalent to polarization of threat by personality as a function

of ethnic change.

16

.25

.3.3

5.4

.45

.5

Per

ceiv

ed C

ultu

ral T

hrea

t

0 .2 .4 .6 .8

Change in % Hispanic, 1990 to 2000

Low Authoritarianism High Authoritarianism

Notes: Estimates are restricted to values of Hispanic change ranging from its 5th to its 95th percentile

Figure 2A. Perceived Cultural Threat and Ethnic Change

Ni=827, Nj=106, s_1^2=.04, s_2^2=.00, s_3^2=.01

Intercept

Change HispanicChange X AuthHispanic Levels

Levels X AuthAuthoritarianism

Bush Vote% Unemployed

EducationIncome

MaleAge

Black

PocketbookImmigrants F&F

Born in U.S.UnemployedPartisanship

Ideology

Nationalism

-.5 -.25 0 .25 .5 .75

Beta

Notes: Data from 2006 CID. Dots are restricted ML estimates. Extended lines are 95% confidence bounds

Figure 2B. Regression Results for Perceived Cultural Threat

17

Results

The estimates for this model are shown in the first column of Panel B of Figure 2 with

their associated 95% confidence bounds. They show strong support for theoretical expectations.

With respect to significance tests of our key directional hypotheses, we utilize one-tailed tests.

First, the coefficient for change in the county-level Hispanic population from 1990-2000 is in the

expected negative direction and statistically significant ( γ̂01=-.28, p<.05). In addition, as

expected, the coefficient for the interaction of change with authoritarianism is positive, larger in

absolute value than the coefficient for change, and statistically significant ( γ̂11=.49, p<.05),

indicating a reversal in direction of the effect of Hispanic change from negative to positive as

authoritarianism increases from low to high.

To better interpret the substance of these results, we generated predicted values of

perceived cultural threat as a function of Hispanic change and authoritarianism in Panel A of

Figure 2. The black line represents the predicted values of threat, moving from the 5th to the 95th

percentile of Hispanic change, for citizens at the 5th percentile of authoritarianism. The grey line

represents the predicted values for citizens at the 95th percentile of authoritarianism. This graph

illustrates nicely the theorized conditional relationship between ethnic change and perceived

threat. For citizens low in authoritarianism, and thus open to change, uncertainty and novelty,

changes in the ethnic composition of one’s county entail a decrease in the perception that

immigrants pose a cultural threat to the United States. Conversely, at high levels of

authoritarianism, and thus for citizens averse to uncertainty and novelty, changes in ethnic

composition entail an increase in the perception that immigrants pose a cultural threat.

We will additionally comment briefly on the estimates for the model’s control variables.

With respect to Hispanic population levels in 2000, we find no evidence of an interaction, but

18

some suggestion that levels may have an influence on the attitudes of low authoritarians. At the

lowest levels of authoritarianism, increases in the percentage Hispanic at the county-level in

2000 are associated with decreased perceptions of cultural threat (p<.10, two-tailed). For every

additional 10% of the county-level population that is Hispanic, we predict a decline in perceived

cultural threat among low authoritarians of about four percentage points. The political context,

operationalized as the percent voting for Bush in 2004, had no influence on threat, while the

unemployment rate had a positive effect, but did not attain conventional levels of statistical

significance. With respect to individual-level controls, education matters a great deal. Moving

from the lowest to the highest levels of educational attainment entails a decrease in perceived

cultural threat of about 17 percentage points. Males were about 3 points more threatened than

females on average, Black citizens were about 5 points more threatened than other groups, and

conservatives were about 7 points more threatened. Finally, citizens who perceive their own

financial situation to be tenuous were more likely to feel that immigrants threaten American

culture. As seen in Figure 1, however, the strongest determinant of perceptions of threat are real

changes in the ethnic composition of the local environment, but in distinct ways conditional on

the personality traits of citizens themselves.

The Potential for Bias Due to Selection

We turn now to a brief consideration of the well-known problem of selection bias, or in

other words, the possibility that respondents select into geographical areas on the basis of the

presumed causal variable as a function of their attitudes or political dispositions. In our case, this

would entail citizens selecting into counties whose demographic profile with respect to ethnicity

fits with their dispositional levels of perceived cultural threat. While we address the issue of

19

causality rigorously through a survey experiment (described further below), we believe there are

reasons to reject the selection bias story in the present case.

While we do not deny that citizens may select into environments on the basis of attitudes

and traits which may be relevant to the immigration attitudes examined herein, we believe that

our hypothesized dynamic of interest, namely, the interactive effects of ethnic change with

personality, should be less subject to claims of selection-induced spuriousness. To see why,

consider the logic of the selection bias argument. This argument would claim that citizens select

into geographic regions as an interactive function of both the region’s level of expected and/or

ongoing ethnic change and the citizen’s own traits and attitudes. Thus, citizens who are most

negative toward immigrants would select into relatively homogenous regions, and those most

positive would select into regions with greater extant or expected diversity. But our hypothesis

is not a simple direct effect of change on attitudes, but rather a conditional one. Specifically, we

expect the impact of ethnic change to be exactly opposite across personality orientations, with

those low in needs for epistemic certainty becoming more positive and vice versa.

While the selection bias argument could potentially hold water for the former hypothesis,

it simply fails for the latter. Specifically, for the selection argument to work, one would have to

posit that those with personality traits and attitudes most averse to such social uncertainty would

be most likely to move to regions undergoing substantial change. This makes little sense. Thus,

while we cannot rule out the possibility of these selection biases in one of the two cases,

confirmation of our hypothesis for citizens with high needs for certainty in their social and

cultural environs speaks strongly in favor of our causal model.

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STUDY 2

While Study 1 provided evidence strongly consistent with theoretical expectations, we

cannot entirely rule out the possibility that these effects are due to selection. In Study 2, we

replicate our findings above with a survey experiment which manipulates perceptions of ethnic

change, and thus rules out the possibility of selection through random assignment. In addition,

we utilized Study 2 as an opportunity to include a more direct measure of aversion to

uncertainty.

Data

The data for our second study consist of 441 valid responses collected through

Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk interface. The procedure for obtaining these data are outlined in

Appendix A. Political and demographic summary statistics are also reported in Appendix A.

Recent research suggests that, while imperfect, samples obtained through Mechanical Turk are

similar in their demographic and political characteristics to those of nationally representative

samples, and are superior to more common methods of collecting convenience samples while

remaining economical (Berinsky, Huber and Lenz 2012). Given that the influence of personality

on information processing and judgment should be a general process, we expect this sample to be

generalizable to the broader population.

Experimental Design

This survey experiment was intended to provide additional support for the causal

mechanism advanced in our theory by directly manipulating perceptions of ethnic change, as

opposed to relying on the assumption of experienced ethnic change within a given geographic

region, thus eliminating the possibility of selection effects. To this end, respondents were

randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions. In all three conditions, respondents

21

first completed a survey of their demographic profile, political affiliations, and relevant

personality traits. In the control condition, respondents then completed a survey of preferences

over several public policy issues, within which were embedded two questions concerning the

respondents’ perception of the threat to American culture posed by immigrants. In the two

treatment conditions (moderate and extreme ethnic change, respectively), before moving on to an

identical policy survey, respondents were asked to read a mock newspaper article3 concerning the

recent increases in the Hispanic population in “most parts of the country in recent years.” In the

moderate change condition, the article informed respondents that several “typical” American

cities had experienced changes in percent Hispanic from about 5% to about 10% from 2000 to

2010. The article also stated that the percentage of restaurants owned by Hispanics had

increased from about 4% to about 9% over this same time period. In the extreme change

condition, these values were 5% to 30%, and 4% to 19%, respectively. In both conditions the

article included a graph displaying the change in the Hispanic population from 2000 to 2010.

Both articles also discussed how these changes have implications for local culture. Finally, both

conditions contained identical statements at the end of the articles from “residents” of one of the

typical cities highlighted in the article. The first resident expressed the opinion that ethnic

change has had positive effects on the local culture, while the other resident expressed the

opinion that change has had negative effects. These two statements were intended to represent

two potential interpretations of the implications of ethnic change with respect to local culture,

and for uncertainty in one’s social environment. As we will show empirically below, this allows

for a more direct test of the “resonance” of different interpretations of the same levels of change

with different personality profiles. The full text of the moderate change article is presented in

3Respondents were told this was a recent article from a major national newspaper, and were debriefed with respect to the true purpose and design of the experiment at the end.

22

Appendix B. Following the article, respondents in both conditions responded to three questions

concerning their agreement with the two speakers, and then continued on to the same survey as

the control condition. All survey items in the post-treatment segment of the study were

randomized with respect to order.

Measures

Personality. We measure aversion to epistemic uncertainty via ten items from the Need

for Nonspecific Cognitive Closure scale (Kruglanski and Webster 1996; Kruglanski, Webster

and Klem 1993). In addition to its use as a key indicator of the more general personality

dimension underlying current ideological conflict in the United States (see Jost et al.

2003;Federico and Goren 2009), the need for closure is highly relevant to our theoretical

expectations concerning citizens’ relative comfort with, or aversion to, uncertainty generally, and

thus to substantial changes in their social environment. As Jost et al. (2003) argue, “contents that

promise or support epistemic stability, clarity, order, and uniformity should be preferred by high-

need-for-closure persons over contents that promise their epistemic opposites (i.e. instability,

ambiguity, chaos, and diversity)” (p. 348). The need for closure (hereafter NFC) was measured

with ten items which are presented in Appendix C (e.g. “I dislike unpredictable situations), and

formed a highly reliable scale (α=.82).

Perceived Cultural Threat. We measured respondents’ perceptions of cultural threat from

immigrants with two items. The first read, “Would you say that America’s cultural life is

generally undermined or enriched by people coming to live here from other countries?”

Responses were recorded on a six-point scale from “Undermined a great deal” to “Enriched a

great deal.” The second item read, “To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following

statement: “These days, I am afraid the American culture is undermined by immigration.”

23

Responses were again recorded on a six-point scale (“Agree strongly” to “Disagree

strongly”).4The two items were highly correlated (r=-.68) and were thus combined into a single

scale.

Controls. We control for several additional variables in our analysis, including personal

and sociotropic economic retrospections, age, gender, Black self-identification, educational

attainment, income, employment status, religiosity (average of attendance and importance),

partisanship (higher values = more Republican), and ideology (higher values = more

conservative).

Agreement with Residents. Finally, in the two treatment conditions, respondents were

asked three questions regarding their agreement and disagreement with the diverging

interpretations of the two “residents” in the mock article. The first two were six-point agree-

disagree scales (as above), one for each of the two residents. The third asked respondents which

interpretation they preferred if they “had to choose.” We examine responses to these items after

our initial analysis below.

All variables were recoded from zero to one prior to analysis.

Analysis

We test our key hypothesis with an OLS regression of perceived cultural threat on NFC,

two dummy variables representing the two ethnic change treatment conditions (with control

group excluded), the interaction of the dummies with personality, and all controls. In line with

theory, and consistent with the results from Study 1, we expect negative and significant

constituent terms on the treatment dummies, indicating that induced perceptions of ethnic change

decrease perceived cultural threat for citizens low in epistemic needs for certainty. Conversely,

4The first item was adapted from the 2006 CID, and the second was adapted from a similar item used in Sniderman et al. (2004).

24

we expect positive and significant interaction terms, indicating that perceived ethnic change

increases cultural threat for citizens high in these needs (with the absolute magnitude of the

interaction term larger than that of the respective constituent term). Our analysis again excludes

self-identified Hispanic respondents.

Results

The estimates for this model are shown in Figure 3A. We again utilize one-tailed

significance tests for our key directional hypotheses. First, as expected, both the moderate and

extreme treatment constituent terms are in the negative direction, although only the moderate

change term achieves statistical significance (B=-.19, p<.05). We will discuss this asymmetry

further below. Second, the interactions of the two treatment conditions with NFC are also in the

expected, positive direction, and of a substantial magnitude, again indicating a reversal of the

influence of perceived ethnic change conditional on citizen personality. As with the treatment

constituent terms, the interaction of moderate change with NFC is statistically significant (B=.32,

p<.05), while the interaction with extreme change is smaller and not significantly different from

either zero or the moderate interaction term. Overall, the pattern of estimates is supportive of

theoretical expectations, and converges with the patterns observed in the cross-sectional data

above. As ethnic change in the current context is manipulated, we can also be confident that our

causal interpretation of the patterns is warranted.

With respect to relative inefficiency of the estimates for the extreme condition, we can

only speculate. A potential explanation for this result is that the extent of the change specified in

the extreme condition was too extreme, and some respondents realized the deception. This

would explain the fact that the extreme manipulation induced the expected dynamics, but the

25

effects were of a smaller magnitude, and contained greater uncertainty. Essentially, a portion of

the respondents simply ignored this information as unreliable.

N=441, R2=.23

InterceptIdeology

PartisanshipSociotropic Retros

Personal RetrosReligiosity

UnemployedIncome

EducationBorn in U.S.

BlackMaleAge

Need for Closure

NFC x ExtremeNFC x Moderate

Extreme Change ConditionModerate Change Condition

-.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 .6Beta

Notes: Dots are OLS estimates. Extended lines are 95% confidence bounds

Figure 3A. Regression Results, Mechanical Turk Experiment.2

.3.4

.5

Per

ceiv

ed C

ultu

ral T

hrea

t

Control Moderate Ethnic Change

Experimental Condition

Low NFC High NFC

Notes: All control variables held at central tendecies. Low NFC=5%, High NFC=95%

Figure 3B. Conditional Effects of Manipulated Ethnic Change

26

To better interpret the substance of these results, we generated predicted values of

perceived cultural threat, across the control and moderate treatment conditions, varying NFC

from its 5th to its 95th percentile, and holding all controls at their central tendencies. These

estimates are shown in Figure 3B. The pattern of estimates is strikingly similar to the cross-

sectional results of Study 1. At low levels of NFC, respondents in the moderate and merged

treatment conditions are about 12 percentage points less threatened culturally than their

counterparts in the control condition. Conversely, at high levels of NFC, respondents in the two

treatment groups are about 5 percentage points more threatened than similar control respondents.

Looking at the interaction in terms of polarization by personality, in the control condition there is

only a 5 percentage point gap in perceived cultural threat across levels of NFC. In the moderate

ethnic change condition, by contrast, this gap increases to a substantial 22 percentage points.

Finally, as discussed several times above, we understand the influence of personality as

emerging from differential interpretations of the implications of ethnic change for local culture.

We thus expect those high in needs for epistemic certainty to interpret change as a threat in its

capacity to alter the socio-cultural landscape. Conversely, we expect those low in such needs,

who tend to be attracted to novelty, to be attentive to the ways in which ethnic change enhances

local culture through increases in diversity, experience and choice. Consistent with these ideas,

we examined the influence of NFC on relative and absolute agreement with the opinions of the

two “speakers” at the end of the article viewed in both treatment conditions. The first two items

following the article asked about agreement with the position of each speaker. We combined

these into a single scale (r=-.77), recoded from zero to one. The third item asked respondents

which position they most agreed with “if they had to choose.”

27

We estimated an OLS regression of relative preference for the speaker who expressed

apprehension about the influence of ethnic change on personality and all controls. The influence

of NFC was strong and statistically significant. A change from the 5th to the 95th percentile of

NFC was associated with an increase in agreement with the concerned speaker of 14 percentage

points (SE=.04). We then estimated a probit regression of the choice variable on the same set of

independent variables. Again, the influence of NFC on agreement is quite strong. A change

from the 5th to 95th percentile entails a 28 point increase in the probability of agreement with the

concerned speaker (SE=.09). We again interpret these results as consistent with the notion that

different ways of interpreting ethnic change differentially “resonate” with personality in

predictable, and politically consequential, ways.

IMPLICATIONS FOR MASS POLARIZATION AND ELITE CONFLICT

As argued in the introduction, our model implies that the interaction of personality and

ethnic change generates polarization of support for restrictive immigration policy through

changes in perceived cultural threat, and that these dynamics ultimately suggest increased

partisan conflict over immigration (see Figure 1).In this final section, we address these dynamics

empirically.

Implications for Polarization of Preferences on Immigration Policy

In addition to perceived cultural threat, we included three additional items in our survey

experiment to measure immigration-related policy preferences. The first item asked, “Do you

think the number of immigrants from foreign countries who are permitted to come to the United

States to live should be increased a lot, increased a little, left the same as it is now, decreased a

little, or decreased a lot?” The second asked, “Thinking about immigrants who are currently

living in the U.S. illegally, should the U.S. Government require these immigrants to go home, or

28

should the Government grant these immigrants some kind of legal status that allows them to stay

here?” The third asked, “How likely would you be to support a state or local law declaring

English as the Official Language?” Responses ranged from 1 (“Extremely likely”) to 6

(“Extremely unlikely”). The three formed a relatively reliable scale (α=.68) and were averaged

such that higher values indicate greater opposition to immigration (the scale ranges from zero to

one).

We estimated a structural equation model linking epistemic needs to immigration

opposition, through perceived cultural threat, conditional on treatment condition. In other words,

we regressed (1) threat on NFC and all controls, and (2) policy preferences on threat, NFC, and

all controls, simultaneously. We estimated a multiple groups model to allow these estimates to

vary across experimental conditions (the equivalent of interactions). Given the uncertainty

regarding the extreme change condition discussed above, we focus here on moderate change

only.

This model was estimated via maximum likelihood, and the key results are displayed

graphically in Figure 5. All variables are again coded on a zero to one scale. The first two rows

show the direct effects of perceived cultural threat and the need for closure on policy preferences

for the control and ethnic change conditions, respectively. With respect to the influence of

cultural threat, our work strongly converges with past work. A change in threat from low to high

is associated with a change in policy conservatism of about 70 percentage points. Conversely,

there is no direct effect of epistemic needs on policy preferences in either condition. Instead, as

theorized and represented in Figure 1, the influence of needs on preferences works indirectly

through perceived cultural threat, conditional on the presence of ethnic change. As above, the

gap between citizens high and low in the need for closure is small and insignificant (.11) in the

29

control condition, but very large and statistically significant in the ethnic change condition (.40,

p<.05). This dynamic translated into conditional polarization of policy preferences by epistemic

needs through threat. The last row of Figure 5 shows the estimated indirect effects of the need

for closure on policy preferences across conditions. In the control condition this effect is

minimal and insignificant (.07), while in the ethnic change condition it is strong and significant

(.28, p<.05). Again, the implication of these dynamics is exacerbated polarization of political

groups on the issue of immigration, and thus the potential for increased polarization at the elite-

level as a function of these “bottom-up” processes.

NFC on Policy (Indirect)

NFC on Threat

NFC on Policy (Direct)

Threat on Policy

-.5 0 .5 1

Beta

-.5 0 .5 1

Control Moderate Ethnic Change

Notes: Data from MTurk experiment. Dots are ML estimates. Extended lines are 95% confidence bounds

Figure 5. SEM Results for Ethnic Change and Policy Preferences

30

Personality and Partisan and Ideological Sorting

As we stated in the introduction, we pursue individual-level heterogeneity in responses to

ethnic change with a practical purpose, namely, to understand the potential implications for the

politics of immigration in the United States. While one could, perhaps, posit a large number of

individual differences which structure responses to contextual factors, these will be more or less

politically influential to the extent that they map onto critical divisions at the elite level. Perhaps

the most important question concerns the extent to which these differences map onto partisan and

ideological divisions, and thus have the potential to affect the behavior of partisan elites. In this

final empirical section, we provide evidence that these personality traits strongly structure

partisan and ideological sorting in contemporary American politics, results which converge with

much recent research in political psychology.

First, in the 2006 CID data, we estimated ordered probit models of partisan and

ideological affiliation (trichotomized into “left,” “center,” and “right”) as a function of

authoritarianism and all controls.5 For both partisanship and ideology, authoritarianism exerts a

strong and substantively significant influence on the probability of identifying with the right

wing in American politics (.95 and 1.22, ps<.05, respectively). At the 5th percentile of

authoritarianism, the probability of identifying as a Democrat is estimated to be .64, while the

probability of identifying as a Republican is only .23, all else equal. Conversely, at the 95th

percentile of this personality variable, the probability of identifying as a Democrat is .41, while

the probability of identifying as a Republican is .44. The effects on ideological orientations are

even larger. The estimated probabilities of liberal and conservative orientations at low

authoritarianism are .41 and .29, respectively. At high levels of this trait, these probabilities

are .16 and .58.

5We utilize the non-Hispanic sample for these analyses.

31

Our own data largely converges with the results from the 2006 CID. For both

partisanship and ideology, again estimating ordered probits with controls, NFC exerts a strong

and significant influence on the probability of right-wing identification (.61 and .88, ps<.05,

respectively).A change from low to high NFC corresponds with a change in the probability of

Democratic identification from .64 to .51, and a change in the probability of Republican

identification from .21to .32. For ideology, the effects are substantially larger. At low levels of

NFC, the probabilities of Liberal and Conservative identification, respectively, are .64 and .18.

At high levels of NFC, these probabilities are .45 and .33.6 Thus, both datasets converge with

other recent work which identifies traits related to epistemic needs for certainty as critical to

understanding contemporary partisan and ideological orientations. Given this underlying

psychological structure to political divisions, ethnic change should be expected to exacerbate

both mass and elite level conflict over immigration.

CONCLUSION

Summary of Findings

The present research has considered the interactive role of personality and context on

citizens’ perceptions of the cultural threat posed by immigrants. Utilizing a multi-method

approach (both observational and experimental), we have provided strong evidence that the

influence of ethnic change on perceived threat is strong, but conditional. More specifically,

ethnic change increases perceived threat for citizens with dispositional needs for epistemic

certainty, and decreases perceived threat for citizens open to novelty and uncertainty. We find

an identical dynamic across two studies, the first examining nationally representative data and

real changes in the ethnic composition of respondents’ environments, and the second

6Recall, in the context of both the partisanship and ideology analyses, that Mechanical Turk respondents show higher average probabilities of identifying with Democrats and Liberals than a random sample of U.S. citizens (see Appendix).

32

manipulating perceptions of ethnic change via random assignment. The convergence of the two

studies speaks strongly in favor of our theorized, interactive approach to immigration opinion.

The present paper thus offers a novel perspective on how the public forms its preferences

over immigration policy. While past research has focused either on “dispositional” variables (e.g.

affective orientations toward immigrant groups) or contextual factors (e.g. out-group levels in

one’s environment), no work to our knowledge has attempted to understand how the stable traits

of citizens shape their attention and reaction to real changes in the ethnic composition of their

environments, and how the interaction of these dispositional and contextual factors shape

politically relevant attitudes.

In this sense, we offer a framework which is truly “political-psychological” in its

orientation, viewing citizen and context as inextricable. This view contrasts both with recent

work on contextual influences on citizen preferences, as well as work in political psychology on

the influence of personality. The former has largely ignored individual differences in how

context influences political attitudes, while the latter has interpreted the influence of personality

on preferences as causally “direct.” Our framework is distinct. We understand personality

through a social cognitive lens (see, e.g., Cervone and Shoda 1999; Mischel and Shoda 1995), or

in other words, as a stable force which shapes citizens’ judgments by influencing their selection

and interpretation of information in the political environment. In the present context, we have

argued that traits related to psychological needs for certainty influence how different aspects of

ethnic change will “resonate” with citizens. While those comfortable with uncertainty may

actually seek out the cultural diversity implied by ethnic change, those averse to uncertainty will

interpret their changing cultural milieu as threatening to the stable environment which they

cherish. In this sense, we should view personality’s role for politics as a mediating one,

33

translating the political environment into political opinions by shaping perceptions, feelings and

inferences (Mischel and Shoda 1995).

The political world impinging on the average citizen is a dynamic one, and our

theoretical vision of how dispositional factors interact with this environment must be able to

accommodate such dynamism. Given the rapidly changing ethnic environment in many parts of

the United States, this is of particular importance to the literature on immigration politics. The

present paper is one step in this direction.

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APPENDIX A. DETAILS FOR MECHANICAL TURK EXPERIMENT

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Mechanical Turk is a service that Amazon.com provides to those who are interested in

the performance of a large number of small tasks that require human judgment. Individuals

performing the tasks create a user profile on the site and are paid a fee for their services that

varies depending on the time, effort, and expertise involved in the task. Researchers post a

human intelligence task (HIT) to the Amazon site and offer payment rate per HIT. A link to our

survey was posted on this site, and advertised under the keywords “politics,” “survey,” and

“public policy.” The description of the task read, “You will be asked to answer several questions

about yourself and respond to a short newspaper article.” Valid completions of the survey were

compensated $.50. The effective hourly rate was estimated to be $3.66. The data were culled to

remove all respondents completing the survey multiple times, leaving a total of 441 valid

completions. Summary statistics for these respondents are shown below.

Central Tendencies and %sMedian Age 28Male 55%Black 5%White 83%Mean Political Interest (1-5) 3.32Mean Subjective Political Knowledge (1-5) 3.17Mean Partisanship (1-7, higher=Rep) 3.40Mean Ideology (1-7, higher=Con) 3.34Mean Importance of Religion to Self (1-5) 2.27Median Income 20K-30KMean Income 30K-40KMedian Education Post-HS DegreeUnemployed or Temporarily Laid Off 19%Student 18%Working Now 53%

APPENDIX B. TEXT OF TREATMENT CONDITIONS (LOW/HIGH)

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Hispanic Immigration and Culture in the United StatesBYLINE: By CAMPBELL JOHNSONSECTION: Section D; Column 0; Pg. 23LENGTH: [512/518] wordsThe 2010 Decennial Census is out, and, as most are aware, there has been a significant increase in Hispanic immigrants in most parts of the country in recent years. While immigration is often a topic of contemporary discussion in economics circles, less often considered are the cultural implications of immigration. Recent immigrants bring their culture with them, and this has led to an increased presence of Hispanic culture in cities across the United States, a trend expected to continue for at least the near future.Consider, for example, the typical American cities of Fairfield, NJ, Topeka, KS, Eugene, OR, or Newton, Mississippi. According to the Decennial Census, the Hispanic population in each of these cities grew [ /drastically] from about 5% of the population in 2000 to roughly [10%/30%] in 2010. With this increased presence of Hispanic immigrants has come a changing local culture. According to the National Restaurant Association, in 2000 4% of these cities’ restaurants were owned and operated by Hispanic immigrants. By 2010, this number had more than [doubled/tripled] to [9%/18%]. More generally, one sees a [rising/surging] number of Hispanic businesses within the strip malls of these areas.Obviously, culture is also intimately intertwined with language, and with increasing Hispanic immigration comes a [ /drastic] growth in Spanish-speaking citizens across U.S. cities. Driving down the street in cities like Fairfield, for example, such changes are apparent in the signage outside strip malls and places of business. Whereas English used to be the sole medium of communication for such displays, [one can sometimes see/one more often than not sees] signs with both English and Spanish translations, and even Spanish-only communications.

Many see these developments as a positive change to their local culture, providing new opportunities and additional experiences. John W., for example, a resident of Fairfield, thinks such changes have made his city a more interesting and exciting place to live: “Five years ago you had basically two choices for eating out in Fairfield, fast food or the local burger place. With the increase in Hispanic immigrants, we now have a wealth of new choices, not only Mexican, but Spanish, Brazilian, even a new Argentinean restaurant!” John also thinks the increased presence of the

Spanish language is a positive development: “It has encouraged my family and me to try to learn a new language, which is great thing I think.”Many do not see these developments as a positive change to their local culture, but as a threat to their long-standing way of life. Mark S., for example, another resident of Fairfield, thinks that these changes have made his city a completely different place to live: “The changes over the last five years have been so large that I barely recognize Fairfield anymore. Sure there are a bunch of new restaurants, but my family and I were perfectly happy with the old ones; it seems that every new opening comes from a different country.” Mark is also unhappy with the increased presence of the Spanish language: “When I walk into a business now, I always wonder whether the clerk will understand me or the signs will be in English.”APPENDIX C. NEED FOR NONSPECIFIC COGNITIVE CLOSURE ITEMS

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2000 20100%

10%

20%

30%

% Hispanic

For each item, please indicate how much you agree or disagree with the statement. Do you Strongly agree, somewhat agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree?

1. “I enjoy the uncertainty of going into a new situation without knowing what might happen.”

2. “I dislike unpredictable situations.”3. “I don’t like to be with people who are capable of unexpected actions.”4. “I prefer to socialize with familiar friends because I know what to expect from them.”5. “I think it is fun to change my plans at the last moment.”6. “I dislike it when a person’s statement could mean many different things.”7. “I feel uncomfortable when someone’s meaning or intention is unclear to me.”8. “I feel uncomfortable when I don’t understand the reason why an event occurred in my

life.”9. “When I am confused about an important issue, I feel very upset.”10. “It’s annoying to listen to someone who cannot seem to make up his or her mind.”

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