Does Information Change Attitudes Towards Immigrants?

The experiment is structured as follows: First, all respondents are asked a few questions on how much they trust official statistics, how many petitions they have signed in the last 12 months, and how worried they are about immigration. Then, we ask them to estimate five important statistics about immigration, such as the proportion of immigrants in the United States, or the proportion of immigrants who are incarcerated. The exact questions that participants need to answer are:

- According to the American Community Survey, what percentage of the total U.S. population are immigrants? By immigrants, we refer to people who were not born in the U.S.
- According to the Department of Homeland Security, what percentage of the total U.S. population are illegal immigrants?
- According to the American Community Survey, about 7 percent of all American citizens are unemployed. What percentage of immigrants are unemployed?
- According to the American Community Survey, 3 percent of all American citizens aged between 18 and 39 are incarcerated. Of all the immigrants living in the U.S. who are between 18 and 39 years old, what percentage are incarcerated?
- According to the American Community Survey, what percentage of immigrants can't speak English?

For each question, participants receive 10 cents if their estimate is within three percentage points of the true value. To avoid having participants look up the answers online, we only give them 25 seconds to answer each question. We also ask them how confident they are that their answer is correct.



Then, the treatment group is told what the correct answers are to these five questions, while the control group is not told anything. People in the treatment group will receive the following feedback:

- You estimated that X percent of the total U.S. population are immigrants. According to the American Community Survey, 13 percent of the total U.S. population are immigrants.

- You estimated that X percent of the total U.S. population are illegal immigrants. According to the Department of Homeland Security, 3 percent of the total U.S. population are illegal immigrants.

- You estimated that X percent of immigrants are unemployed. According to the American Community Survey, around 6 percent of immigrants are unemployed.

- You estimated that X percent of immigrants aged between 18 and 39 are incarcerated. According to the American Community Survey, 2 percent of immigrants aged between 18 and 39 are incarcerated.

- You estimated that X percent of immigrants cannot speak English. According to the American Community Survey, 8 percent of immigrants cannot speak English.

2016-03-03

2016-03-04

Self-Reported Measures

We ask all the participants a series of questions on their perception of legal and illegal immigrants, as well as on their policy preferences. For instance, we ask them whether they think that there are too many immigrants in the US, whether legal immigration should be reduced, whether immigrants have a negative impact on American society as a whole etc. For a detailed description of all the questions, please refer to the experimental instructions and the attached pre-analysis plan.

Behavioral Measures

We use two behavioral measures to assess whether the treatment changed our participants' attitude towards immigrants.\medskip

First, we give participants the option of signing the following pro-immigrant petition:

"Facilitate legal immigration into the US! Immigration is beneficial to the US economy, and it is therefore important to increase the number of green cards available for immigrants. Indeed, not only do immigrants strengthen the US economy, but they are also hard-working and law-abiding. Moreover, most of them adapt to our way of life, and they enrich our culture tremendously. This is why we believe that more green cards should be issued to immigrants, so that more of them can take part in the American Dream."
This gives us a behavioural measure of people's willingness to encourage legal immigration.


Second, we observe how much money participants donate to a pro-immigrant NGO. Specifically, respondents will read the following message:

Every tenth participant taking part in this survey will receive an extra \$10. They will have to choose how much money they want to keep for themselves, and how much money they want to donate to the American Immigration Council. Here is a short presentation of the American Immigration Council: The American Immigration Council is a non-profit, non-partisan, organization [which] exists to promote the prosperity and cultural richness of our diverse nation by:

- standing up for sensible and humane immigration policies that reflect American values,
- insisting that our immigration laws be enacted and implemented in a way that honors fundamental constitutional and human rights,
- working tirelessly to achieve justice and fairness for immigrants under the law.

Then then have to specify how much money they want to keep for themselves, and how much they want to give to the American Immigration Council.

The experiment is structured as follows: First, all respondents are asked a few questions on how much they trust official statistics, how many petitions they have signed in the last 12 months, and how worried they are about immigration. Then, we ask them to estimate five important statistics about immigration, such as the proportion of immigrants in the United States, or the proportion of immigrants who are incarcerated. The exact questions that participants need to answer are:

- According to the American Community Survey, what percentage of the total U.S. population are immigrants? By immigrants, we refer to people who were not born in the U.S.
- According to the Department of Homeland Security, what percentage of the total U.S. population are illegal immigrants?
- According to the American Community Survey, about 7 percent of all American citizens are unemployed. What percentage of immigrants are unemployed?
- According to the American Community Survey, 3 percent of all American citizens aged between 18 and 39 are incarcerated. Of all the immigrants living in the U.S. who are between 18 and 39 years old, what percentage are incarcerated?
- According to the American Community Survey, what percentage of immigrants can't speak English?

For each question, participants receive 10 cents if their estimate is within three percentage points of the true value. To avoid having participants look up the answers online, we only give them 25 seconds to answer each question. We also ask them how confident they are that their answer is correct.



Then, the treatment group is told what the correct answers are to these five questions, while the control group is not told anything. People in the treatment group will receive the following feedback:

- You estimated that X percent of the total U.S. population are immigrants. According to the American Community Survey, 13 percent of the total U.S. population are immigrants.

- You estimated that X percent of the total U.S. population are illegal immigrants. According to the Department of Homeland Security, 3 percent of the total U.S. population are illegal immigrants.

- You estimated that X percent of immigrants are unemployed. According to the American Community Survey, around 6 percent of immigrants are unemployed.

- You estimated that X percent of immigrants aged between 18 and 39 are incarcerated. According to the American Community Survey, 2 percent of immigrants aged between 18 and 39 are incarcerated.

- You estimated that X percent of immigrants cannot speak English. According to the American Community Survey, 8 percent of immigrants cannot speak English.

Randomization done by computer.

Individuals

No

800 individuals

800 individuals

400 treatment individuals and 400 control individuals.

Representative Data PAP

Does Information Change Attitudes Towards Immigrants