My values, their values: how value conceptualisations influence attitudes towards immigration

Abstract

How people conceptualise their values can be distinguished regarding several characteristics: the awareness of one’s values, the relevance of values in one’s life, the stability throughout the life course, their overall consistency, their normative power, and validity for the self and others. This article aims to explore how value conceptualisations influence attitudes towards immigration. The relevance of this question stems from two research strands: first, immigration research has critically addressed that integration policies increasingly center around values. The value conceptualisation embedded in these policies is suggested to foster negativity towards immigrants. I ask, if therefore value conceptualisations help to estimate a person’s attitudes towards immigrations? Second, attitudes towards immigrants are known to be influenced by value priorities (such as universalism and tradition). Is this relationship of values and attitudes moderated by how a person conceptualises their values? Data from the Austrian Value Formation Survey (1.519 participants) is used to analyse multiple linear regression models. The results reveal both direct and moderating effects of value conceptualisations on attitudes towards immigrations. These findings indicate that the way we think about our values is important to our attitudes on social matters and the way our values shape these attitudes.