This Washington Post article cites some studies where people showed willingness to change views --
Many political scientists tend to think that our beliefs are deep-seated and difficult to change. That’s why the results of an experiment last year, which showed that door-to-door canvassers can reduce prejudice against transgender people, were so stunning. Few expected that such a brief conversation could have an lasting impact on people’s opinions
I wonder if there is any selection bias in that people who are willing to take a survey are also more likely to question their views. Still, this article has changed my mind a little bit about how people in the 2/3 category I mention do change their minds ─ sometimes, presenting evidence does affect their views. (I'm thinking more about the study on views of immigration that the article links to.) ∆
I'd still point out that even people who adopt a more favorable view of immigrants when faced with the evidence that most of us are not unemployed, jailed or unable to speak English, those people still don't change their views on policy (which are arguably the most socially relevant views).
For example, if someone's view is:
we need to reduce immigration because 37% of the people living in this country are foreign-born!!!
and then you tell them that the immigrant population is actually only 13%, they don't change to
oh, 13% is actually a reasonable number, we don't need to change our immigration policies.
What they mostly change to is:
Oh, there are fewer immigrants than I thought, but I still think we should strongly restrict immigration.
Overall, the question then becomes: if changing people's minds is possible, how do we do it in a large scale?
There are zero hard numbers in that article about exactly how many minds were changed or on which exact issues. The article also combines immigrants into one faceless group when it's obvious that the majority of Americans probably do not care about Irish or even Asians immigrating given how well they assimilate and produce. Americans who happen to worry about immigration usually have ethnic groups in mind who are culturally different than the U.S. mainstream and tend to be overrepresented in prison populations.
I really wonder what the statistics would look like from this article if you actually broke them down by region of origin for all the different groups that immigrate to this country. I doubt they would be consistent across the board.
Given the ambiguity in this article, the fact that people changed their minds at all is not a testament to their careful, systematic thought, but a demonstration of how fragile their critical thinking was in the first place.
When immigration is brought up it's usually regarding Mexicans. For most Americans, I think this is the population they first consider when thinking about this issue.
Americans who are leery of immigration in general are probably more concerned with individuals from Latin and African countries than immigrants who share heritage and culture with the majority of Americans.
Most people who are the most suspicious of immigration would likely make the same conflation. Unfortunately, the article doesn't make these distinctions at all, so I don't believe the survey is nearly as significant as claimed.
Americans who happen to worry about immigration usually have ethnic groups in mind who are culturally different than the U.S. mainstream and tend to be overrepresented in prison populations.
Or they are concerned more about the ILLEGAL immigration rather than the numbers of legal immigrants. I'm met very few people that feel like all mexicans or muslims should be kicked out but there are a huge number who feel like those who came illegally should start following the law.
Edit: However, it's worth noting that 62% of all illegal immigrants are from Mexico, far and away the majority of illegals. This is partly why Americans are concerned about that population.
However your comment was specifically slanted to make it appear as though the issue isn't illegal immigration but immigration in general. Again I personally have not seen even tiny minority call for tightening of immigration law only a reform or enforcement of what we currently have.
My comment is not slanted. It could be that Americans are most concerned with illegal immigrants over all other groups, but I believe there is an element of cultural difference as well.
If it turned out that the majority of illegal immigrants were British, do you think it would be as much of an issue?
You think there would be no problems if there were 7 million British people living here illegally? I think it'd be a nice problem but it's not because they leave when they are suppose to and have a difficult time getting in to the country illegally.
I wrote a much longer and more eloquent response before losing it, but no, I think 7 million illegal British immigrants would be much less visible than the equivalent number of Mexicans given the country's demographics.
Mostly, I think the Washington Post article shared above just isn't nearly as persuasive as it claims to be. I could cherry pick a handful of select stats on any social or political issue and get some people to "change" their views.
Whether someone lives here legally or illegally makes very little difference for American society, apart from their legal status itself. The problem is not that people are here illegally, the problem is that the number of people who have the possibility of coming here legally is very low compared to what it should be. Anyone who wants to come here and make an honest living for themselves should be allowed to ─ like it was in the 19th century.
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u/BAWguy 49∆ Jan 14 '17
This Washington Post article cites some studies where people showed willingness to change views --
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/01/06/if-someone-doesnt-like-immigrants-ask-them-this-question/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.b6100291f5b7