Great Expectations A Sociocognitive Perspective on Attitudes Toward Immigrants Sanne Maria Noyon Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute Florence, 05 June 2017 European University Institute Department of Political and Social Sciences Great Expectations A Sociocognitive Perspective on Attitudes Toward Immigrants Sanne Maria Noyon Thesis submitted for assessment with a view to obtaining the degree of Doctor of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute Examining Board Prof. Sven Holger Steinmo, European University Institute (Supervisor) Prof. Delia Baldassarri, New York University Prof. Hanspeter Kriesi, European University Institute Prof. Tom W. G. van der Meer, University of Amsterdam © Sanne Maria Noyon, 2017 No part of this thesis may be copied, reproduced or transmitted without prior permission of the author Researcher declaration to accompany the submission of written work Department of Political and Social Sciences - Doctoral Programme I Sanne Maria Noyon certify that I am the author of the work Great Expectations: A Sociocognitive Perspective on Attitudes Toward Immigrants I have presented for examination for the Ph.D. at the European University Institute. I also certify that this is solely my own original work, other than where I have clearly indicated, in this declaration and in the thesis, that it is the work of others. I warrant that I have obtained all the permissions required for using any material from other copyrighted publications. I certify that this work complies with the Code of Ethics in Academic Research issued by the European University Institute (IUE 332/2/10 (CA 297). The copyright of this work rests with its author. Quotation from it is permitted, provided that full acknowledgement is made. This work may not be reproduced without my prior written consent. This authorisation does not, to the best of my knowledge, infringe the rights of any third party. I declare that this work consists of 65,294 words. Statement of inclusion of previous work: I confirm that chapter 5 draws upon an earlier article that is currently under review. Statement of language correction: This thesis has been corrected for linguistic and stylistic errors. I certify that I have checked and approved all language corrections, and that these have not affected the content of this work. Signature and date: Florence, 1 May 2017 Sanne Noyon Great expectations vi Acknowledgments I wish to thank many people who have contributed to this dissertation in one way or another. Some may have done so in more obvious ways than others, but without you this experience would not have been the same. Thank you for the difference you have made. As for the “obvious influence” category, I think it is safe to say that this dissertation would not have been possible without the unconditional and loyal guidance of my advisor Sven Steinmo. In one of our first meetings, you told me you would sometimes drive more senior students crazy by always coming up with more and more things they could include in their work. Luckily, you did not drive me crazy. What you did do was encourage me to consider different perspectives, gently push me to pursue directions of research that did not always seem interesting to me at first (and always turned out to be inspiring when I learned more about them), give me the occasional life lesson, and force me to be precise in my definitions – I have lost count of the times you asked me “what is uncertainty?”. Most importantly, you never lost faith in me, no matter how confused (or uncertain) I was about where my research was going. I also wish to thank my committee members Delia Baldassarri, Hanspeter Kriesi, and Tom van der Meer for their many useful and insightful comments, which have greatly improved my dissertation. I would probably never have considered doing a PhD – or even heard of the EUI – if it was not for my Master’s supervisor Henk Staats. One day you proposed that a PhD in social science in Italy could be “just the thing for me”, and the next you were reviewing my research proposal and helping me prepare for the interview. I am grateful for your encouragement, with the application as much as throughout the PhD. I would like to thank my interviewees from Rucphen and Schijndel for their time and invaluable contributions to Chapter 4. I further thank Ieke and Eva for their cheerful help in dropping letters, the Willing to Pay? crowd for many long and inspiring discussions on experiments and methods, and Martina for navigating me through the bureaucratic side of it all. I have greatly enjoyed the advice and company of my writing group with Nicky, Max, Johanna, Céline, and Laia. I am especially grateful to Max, who suggested the lost-letters experiment during one of our sessions, and then helped me to actually make it happen. I thank Anna for helping me make Florence my new home from the very moment I vii Sanne Noyon Great expectations arrived. My time here has been great thanks to many wonderful people including Marijn, Roel, Nele, Ieva, Guillaume, Punky, Andrea, Emma, and Jacobien. I also recall many great moments with Hannita and my Peposo crowd Metin, Niall, Ohto, and Beata: you taught me how to love Florence and football and I could not imagine a more valuable lesson. I have enjoyed cultivating this football love with the Mad Cows (and Misters Nino, Riccardo, and Jony). I am especially grateful to Isa and Ale for their excellent maternal and party skills (depending on the need) and to my angels Laia and Rebecca for endless Community nights, Piemonte trips, beans & coffee, fun on and off the pitch, breakfasts, burgers, mimosas, and so much more. I would like to thank my Dutch friends and in particular Flo, Jeanile, and Lieke for always welcoming me back to the Netherlands with bitterballen, the import of roze koeken and stroopwafels to Italy, volcano watching, good company (often over good wine), and good care when I was sick (as promised I also thank Lieke for the half an hour extra work I earned because you finished late!). I also wish to mention my field hockey girls – special thanks go to Margje for taking on the responsibility of creating a Florence-inspired Eurobaby. I want to thank my parents and Tijs and Ieke for always being there for me throughout these years. Knowing me better than anyone else, you always knew when we could have thesis talk and when it was better to just enjoy each other’s company over bistecca, beers in Bruges, or the accidental cultural outing. I am also grateful to Opa, who taught me to never give up and who would have loved so much to be here now, and Oma, who is more proud of me than she dares to admit. It means a lot to me, thank you. When I first came to Florence, it was the city of my literary love Dante. Now it is also the city of my true love Paschalis. From secret spy missions and stargazing to controlling and passing balls, everything – even traffic lights – is better with you on my side. No matter how bad the weather or my thesis mood, you are always there to hold my hand and take my stress away. For that, and for the simple fact that our paths crossed in Florence, I feel so lucky and grateful. viii Abstract Why is there so much variation in attitudes toward immigrants? Research consistently shows that people with lower socioeconomic status and education levels display more negative attitudes toward immigrants and that there is significant variation in public opinion between countries and over time. While common explanations such as contact theory and ethnic competition theory account for some of this variation, many questions remain unanswered. The present dissertation takes a “sociocognitive approach”, focusing on two fundamental human needs: the need to belong and the need to understand. I argue that this approach adds to existing accounts by providing an explanation for attitude change as well as helping us to explain a set of unanswered puzzles regarding variation in anti-immigrant sentiment. I argue that normative influence processes, framing, and uncertainty are key to understanding attitudes toward immigrants, and I present a series of semi-independent empirical studies using a variety of methodological approaches to tease out these mechanisms. First, a series of natural experiments reveals that there is no straightforward relationship between uncertainty and attitudes toward immigrants. Most notably, I find that public attitudes toward immigrants in the Netherlands were not affected by the 2004 murder of Theo van Gogh. Second, I propose that this may be due to the way in which the murder was interpreted in the media – an explanation that is in line with the framing hypothesis. Third, using support for an anti-immigration party as a proxy for attitudes toward immigrants I show how social identity- and normative influence processes can provide a plausible explanation for extreme levels of populist radical right support. Fourth, I present a survey experiment which reveals that there is no strong relationship between attitudes toward immigrants and support for redistribution in the UK. This finding goes against interest-based explanations of attitudes toward immigrants, thereby paving the way for a sociocognitive approach. ix Sanne Noyon Great expectations x Contents Acknowledgments viii Preface 1 1 Introduction 7 1.1 Contact and competition . 11 1.2 Toward a sociocognitive theory of attitudes toward immigrants . 15 1.2.1 Social identity theory . 16 1.2.2 Framing and uncertainty . 17 1.3 The present dissertation .