Attitudes Toward Hispanic Immigrants and Immigration Policies in the United States: Exploring the Roles of Age and Framing Through a Survey Experiment

Abstract

Hispanic immigrants are the largest immigrant group in the United States. However, conflicting immigration attitudes have stalemated efforts to develop more systematic and effective policies to better incorporate them. Guided by age stratification theory and framing theory, the present study examined the roles of age and framing in attitudes toward Hispanic immigrants and immigration policies. We used an experimental design to embed survey questions in the RAND American Life Panel (n = 694). Before answering the questions, respondents were randomly assigned to one of three brief priming statements that described Hispanic immigrants using a conservative, progressive, or no framing. We performed bivariate analyses and multivariate regressions to examine how age and framing are associated with attitudes toward Hispanic immigrants and immigration policies, and conducted post hoc comparisons to determine the interactions between age and framing. We found that at the bivariate level, compared to younger people, middle-aged and older people had less supportive attitudes toward Hispanic immigrants and immigration policies; there was no difference in immigration attitudes by framing. After controlling for covariates, we found that compared to younger people, middle-aged were less supportive of immigrants, and both middle-aged and older adults were less supportive of immigration policies; conservative framing was associated with a more negative attitude toward immigration policies. Framing moderated differences in immigration attitudes by age, with different age groups tending to be responsive to different framing statements. The study highlights age as a significant factor in affecting immigration attitudes, and demonstrates the potential of using framing to influence immigration attitudes for different age groups.