Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Effect of Empathy on Public Opinion on Immigration

本研究以移民政策为研究对象，研究移情对个人信息处理和意见形成的影响。研究人员关注同理心和移民有三个原因。首先，移民作为一个政策领域尚未解决，非常突出，影响着数百万人的生活和生活质量。其次，在移民问题上，很多公众意见都是按党派划分的，这为学习和改变观点提供了一个困难的测试案例。如果同理心影响了移民观点的动机、学习和观点变化过程，那么它在政策领域的潜在影响可能会更大，因为这些领域不会产生太大的分歧。第三，这个项目填补了情感和移民观点方面的学术工作的主要空白。到目前为止，学术界只研究了焦虑、威胁、愤怒和热情对政治观点的影响。这个项目通过提供关于移情对移民意见的影响的第一手研究来促进知识的发展。此外，本研究探讨了移情如何不仅影响移民政策偏好，而且影响人们形成政策意见的考虑因素(例如，对移民的信念)。该项目解决了三个主要的研究问题。对移民的同理心如何影响信息寻求、政治学习和观点改变？这些影响是否受到种族和党派之争的影响？这些移情效应会持续多久，会持续到什么程度？为了评估这些问题，研究人员进行了一项实验，以衡量对非法移民的同理心增加对个人学习、给出理由和移民政策意见的影响。该项目使用现实世界的新闻文章来增加受试者的同理心，并调查自我报告的问题，以全面了解这种未被研究的情感对移民问题的影响。人们的期望是，这种同理心会激发寻求信息的行为，增强政治学习的前景，最终甚至会改变那些强硬的观点，比如移民问题上的观点。它还假定，移情的效果取决于一个人的种族和党派。这个项目的创新之处在于，通过一项调查来跟踪其实验，以评估特定情绪对意见的直接影响是暂时的还是具有更持久的影响。这项研究做出了几个更广泛的贡献。该项目揭示了公民对分裂问题的看法。此外，该项目还加强了对情绪对舆论影响的理解。

This project studies the impact of empathy on individual information processing and opinion formation on immigration policy. The researcher focuses on empathy and immigration for three reasons. First, immigration as a policy area is unresolved, is extremely salient, and influences the lives and quality of life of millions of people. Second, much of public opinion on immigration is divided along party lines, which presents a difficult test case for learning and opinion change. If empathy affects the motivational, learning, and opinion change processes on immigration opinion, its potential impact may be even greater in policy arenas that are not as divisive. Third, this project fills major gaps in scholarly work on emotion and immigration opinion. To date, scholarship has only explored the effects of anxiety, threat, anger, and enthusiasm on political opinions. This project advances knowledge by providing first-cut research into the impact of empathy on immigration opinion. In addition, this research explores how empathy affects not only immigration policy preferences but also the considerations (e.g., beliefs about immigrants) that people draw upon to form policy opinions. The project addresses three chief research questions. How does empathy towards immigrants affect information seeking, political learning, and opinion change? Are these effects moderated by ethnicity and partisanship? How long and to what extent do these empathic effects endure? To assess these questions, the researcher conducts an experiment to measure the effects of increased feelings of empathy toward undocumented immigrants on individual learning, reason giving, and immigration policy opinion. The project uses real-world news articles to increase subject empathy and survey self-report questions to provide a comprehensive understanding of the effects of this understudied emotion on the issue of immigration. The expectation is that that empathy motivates information-seeking behavior, enhances the prospects for political learning, and ultimately changes even hardened opinions such as those on immigration. It is also posited that the effects of empathy depend on a person's race and partisanship. This project innovates by using a survey to follow up on its experiments in order to estimate whether the immediate impact of specific emotions on opinion are temporary or has more lasting effects. This research makes several broader contributions. The project sheds light on how citizens think about divisive issues. Moreover, the project enhances understanding of the impact of emotion on public opinion.