Proud to support social equality: Investigating the roles of pride, guilt, anger, and disgust in attitudes towards immigrants

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that low social dominance orientation (social equality orientation) promotes empathy with disadvantaged group members. In three studies, we tested a model relating preference for egalitarianism to positive attitudes towards immigrants through emotional experiences (pride, guilt, moral anger/ anger, disgust). Studies 1 and 2 showed that social equality orientation was positively related to proimmigrant attitudes through increased pride in helping immigrants, controlling for participants’ gender, age, and political orientation. Such a preference for egalitarianism was unrelated to proimmigrant attitudes through guilt for not helping immigrants and moral anger concerning mistreatment of immigrants. By focusing on emotional experience concerning proimmigrant national initiatives (e.g., integrating immigrants into the labor market), Study 3 corroborated the indirect effect of social equality orientation on proimmigrant attitudes through increased pride, controlling for participants’ gender, age, political orientation, as well as competitive jungle and dangerous world beliefs. Although much weaker, we also found a positive association between social equality orientation and proimmigrant attitudes through reduced anger, while no significant association through guilt and disgust was found. Results suggest that, relative to guilt, anger, and disgust, pride is the key channel through which preference for egalitarianism is related to positive attitudes towards immigrants. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.