Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Effect of Empathy on Public Opinion on Immigration

博士论文研究：同理心对移民舆论的影响

• 批准号: 1124608
• 负责人: Subramanian Ramakrishnan
• 金额: $ 1.2万
• 依托单位: University of California-Riverside
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-08-15 至 2013-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1124608&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Effect; Empathy

This project studies the impact of empathy on individual information processing and opinion formation on immigration policy. The researcher focuses on empathy and immigration for three reasons. First, immigration as a policy area is unresolved, is extremely salient, and influences the lives and quality of life of millions of people. Second, much of public opinion on immigration is divided along party lines, which presents a difficult test case for learning and opinion change. If empathy affects the motivational, learning, and opinion change processes on immigration opinion, its potential impact may be even greater in policy arenas that are not as divisive. Third, this project fills major gaps in scholarly work on emotion and immigration opinion. To date, scholarship has only explored the effects of anxiety, threat, anger, and enthusiasm on political opinions. This project advances knowledge by providing first-cut research into the impact of empathy on immigration opinion. In addition, this research explores how empathy affects not only immigration policy preferences but also the considerations (e.g., beliefs about immigrants) that people draw upon to form policy opinions. The project addresses three chief research questions. How does empathy towards immigrants affect information seeking, political learning, and opinion change? Are these effects moderated by ethnicity and partisanship? How long and to what extent do these empathic effects endure? To assess these questions, the researcher conducts an experiment to measure the effects of increased feelings of empathy toward undocumented immigrants on individual learning, reason giving, and immigration policy opinion. The project uses real-world news articles to increase subject empathy and survey self-report questions to provide a comprehensive understanding of the effects of this understudied emotion on the issue of immigration. The expectation is that that empathy motivates information-seeking behavior, enhances the prospects for political learning, and ultimately changes even hardened opinions such as those on immigration. It is also posited that the effects of empathy depend on a person's race and partisanship. This project innovates by using a survey to follow up on its experiments in order to estimate whether the immediate impact of specific emotions on opinion are temporary or has more lasting effects. This research makes several broader contributions. The project sheds light on how citizens think about divisive issues. Moreover, the project enhances understanding of the impact of emotion on public opinion.

该项目研究了移情对个人信息处理和意见形成对移民政策的影响。研究人员的重点是同理心和移民，原因有三个。 首先，移民作为一个政策领域尚未解决，非常重要，并且影响了数百万人的生活和生活质量。 其次，关于移民的大部分公众舆论都划分为政党路线，这是一个艰难的学习和意见变化的测试案例。 如果同理心影响动机，学习和意见变化对移民意见的变化过程，那么在不那么分裂的政策领域，其潜在影响可能会更大。第三，该项目填补了情感和移民意见的学术工作的主要空白。 迄今为止，奖学金仅探讨了焦虑，威胁，愤怒和热情对政治观点的影响。 该项目通过提供对移情对移民意见的影响的第一切割研究来提高知识。此外，这项研究探讨了移情不仅如何影响移民政策的偏好，还影响人们借鉴政策意见的考虑（例如，对移民的信念）。 该项目解决了三个主要研究问题。对移民的同理心如何影响寻求信息，政治学习和舆论改变？这些影响是否由种族和党派制作主持？这些移情效应在多长时间和多大程度上忍受？ 为了评估这些问题，研究人员进行了一个实验，以衡量对无证件移民的同情心对个人学习，理性给予和移民政策意见的影响。 该项目使用现实世界的新闻文章来增加主题的同理心和调查自我报告问题，以全面了解这种研究的情绪对移民问题的影响。 期望同情可以激发信息寻求信息的行为，增强政治学习的前景，并最终改变甚至在移民方面的强化意见。 还认为同理心的影响取决于一个人的种族和党派。 该项目通过使用调查进行跟进实验来进行创新，以估计特定情绪对意见的直接影响是暂时的还是更持久的效果。这项研究做出了更多的贡献。该项目阐明了公民如何看待分裂问题。此外，该项目增强了人们对情感对舆论的影响的理解。