Belief in a Zero-Sum Game as a determinant of anti-immigrant attitudes

Abstract

This study examined whether individual differences in Belief in a Zero-Sum Game (BZSG; Rozycka-Tran et al., 2015) predicted anti-immigrant attitudes. Esses et al. (1998) indicated that Zero-Sum Beliefs about allocating resources between a host country's citizens and immigrants predict anti-immigrant attitudes. However, why individual differences in Zero-Sum Beliefs appear and predict anti-immigrant attitudes has not been examined. Two studies demonstrated that the BZSG Scale, which assesses the individual difference in the perception of general resource distribution, predicts anti-immigrant attitudes. This result suggests that perceiving intergroup situations as competitive influences anti-immigrant attitudes.