Good Citizenship and Native-Immigrant Conflict: Experimental Evidence From Europe

Value conflict is at the heart of opposition to multiculturalism in Europe. Yet previous studies have not established which type of value conflict generates more anti-immigrant bias. We present a simple, cost-effective, and easily scalable experimental design to test how anti-immigrant bias responds to perceptions of value conflict generated by violations of welfare state norms and gender equity norms. Both types of norms are central to public debates about immigration in Europe. We collect new data from three European countries on natives’ beliefs regarding immigrants as likely violators of these norms, and we measure the salience of these norms in native society. We find that natives do not always sanction immigrants more for norm violations and their reactions to norm adherence or violations are consistent with a logic of “updating” for high-salience norms in countries where norm adherence is itself a norm.