Political affiliation, collective self-esteem and perceived employability of immigrants: Inducing national identity polarizes host-nation employers

Abstract

Host-nation employers’ political affiliation and national identity both may be relevant to seeing immigrant job-seekers as employable. However, whether national identity alters differences in links between political affiliation and evaluations of immigrants is not well articulated, and this includes a potential for national identity to either bolster or lessen harshness toward immigrant job-seekers. Moreover, research has yet to identify psychological mechanisms that could transmit a conjoint effect of political affiliation and national identity. In this study, we examined the capacity of national identity to accentuate links between political affiliation and perceived employability of immigrants. Liberal and conservative employment experts (human resource professionals and managers) were experimentally primed to elicit either a personal or national (U.S.) identity, and measures of attitudes toward immigrant job-seekers were collected. Results suggested a polarizing effect of national identity: conservative employers viewed immigrants as less employable when primed with national identity, while liberal employers rated immigrants as more employable. Among conservatives, priming national identity also resulted in greater collective self-esteem – feelings of self-worth derived from group membership. Moreover, increases in collective self-esteem mediated the link between primed national identity and less perceived employability among conservatives. Overall, this research contributes to emerging literature by suggesting that the capacity of national identity to either bolster or lessen harshness toward immigrants may depend on political affiliation. In addition, we suggest that transient changes in collective self-esteem can result from priming national identity, and that such changes may transmit links between national identity and evaluations of immigrants among conservatives.