Queen Bee Immigrant: The effects of status perceptions on immigration attitudes

This work studies the dynamics of inter-minority relations and attempts to uncover the influence of status position of the established immigrants on their attitudes towards new waves of immigration. I hypothesize that relative status deprivation, that is, the degree to which own in-group is ranked low in the ethnic status hierarchy of the host country, has a negative impact on group members’ attitudes toward an even lower ranked status group (such as refugees). In an online experiment (N=1,159), participants with migration background residing in Germany receive either a positive or a negative evaluation of their own ethnic/national in-group, as evaluated by a group of ethnic German participants, while keeping constant the evaluations of other immigrant groups. The results show that participants whose in-group received a negative evaluation are systematically less willing to donate to an organization supporting refugees. Furthermore, receiving negative evaluation impacts participants’ perceived descriptive norms regarding expression of non-acceptance of refugees (and other low-status out-groups) among majority population. Additionally, I study the role of indirect reciprocity as a possible moderator of observed treatment effects.