The impact of culture fusion in the context of immigration: The crucial role of cultural contamination and threat

Abstract Culture fusion, defined as the blending of two cultural representations, can promote negative reactions based on perceived contamination of and symbolic threat to the heritage culture. In three experiments, we examined the possibility that such negative reactions to culture fusion may be responsible for exclusionary attitudes toward immigrants. We predicted that culture fusion would occur when an immigrant occupies a position that is representative of the host culture. We also tested whether the immigrant's cultural attitudes would moderate the effect of host cultural representativeness. Across three studies, Japanese participants ( N = 1421) read a scenario depicting an American immigrant who had either a culturally representative (e.g. Shinto priest) or a non‐representative occupation (e.g. bank worker). In addition, he was described as either willing to assimilate into Japanese culture or maintain American attitudes. The results revealed that the priest immigrant elicited stronger opposition to immigration, especially when he maintained foreign attitudes. In addition, disgust consistently mediated the effect of host cultural representativeness, with a lower impact from symbolic threat. More notably, the immigrant's (non‐)assimilative attitudes were consistently a key determinant of the opposition. However, when the sacred element of cultural representativeness was removed, the aversive response toward the scenario character was diminished. Implications and mitigating factors are discussed concerning when immigrants are seen as a case of culture fusion.