When censoring anti-immigration attitudes backfires - The impact of reactance and censorship on political attitudes

Abstract: Anti-immigration movements are currently enjoying electoral success around the world, despite attempts by incumbent parties to mitigate their influence on voters. This seeming paradox is the main focus of this paper, aiming to investigate whether attempts censor and ostracize antiimmigration attitudes actually mitigate their influence or not. Two studies were conducted: Study 1 investigated whether censoring anti-immigration attitudes makes them more influential, and if the framing of the censorship affects this process – as suggested by Psychological Reactance Theory. This was done using an experimental paradigm. Study 2 investigated the correlation between a number of personality and political variables and voter support for the anti-immigration party the Sweden Democrats. This was done using an internet-based survey design. The results could not support that censoring anti-immigration attitudes had a general effect on attitudinal change. Lack of statistical power, low reliability of dependent measures, and low paradigm validity may be factors behind this. A few significant interactions were found, suggesting that sex and previous attitudes may act as moderators in this process: Men became more negative towards immigration when exposed to censorship, as opposed to women. This effect was strongest in a paternalistic motivated censorship. Those who were positive to immigration became more negative following the manipulation, and vice versa. This effect was found to emerge regardless of exposure to censorship. Lastly, it was found that supporters of the Sweden Democrats hold significantly more populist attitudes, less social capital, less rejection sensitivity and less system justification than others.