Abstract
Globalization implicates a number of social psychological processes and outcomes, including openness to ideas, products, and people from outside one’s national boundaries. Drawing from theory and research on intergroup threat, the researchers posited that people will be more open to connections between their nation and others if they feel their economic situation and culture are relatively secure. They found some support for these hypotheses in 2 sets of archival survey responses collected by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in 2002 (40 countries; N = 34,073) and 2009 (25 countries; N = 22,500). Personal economic security and perceived national economic security were associated with more positive attitudes toward globalization in both survey years. However, country-level variables—development status (as indexed by the United Nations’ Human Development Index) and aggregated economic and cultural security—moderated the individual-level effects in several ways. Individual perceptions of national economic security more strongly predicted attitudes toward globalization in more favourable climates (e.g., in more developed countries, and at higher levels of country-level national economic security). Individual-level cultural security was positively associated with attitudes toward globalization in countries with higher levels of socioeconomic development, but negatively related to those attitudes in less developed nations. The results provide some new perspectives on individual and collective factors that inform the perceived benefits of globalization.
Highlights
As the world becomes more connected—economically, culturally, politically, and technologically—there is a need to understand the factors underlying people’s openness to various aspects of globalization.Why was this study done? Whereas attitudes toward globalization are often quite positive, many people around the world feel that their “way of life” needs to be protected
They proposed that attitudes toward globalization would be more positive when people feel a sense of economic security—in their own income and job, as well as in their nation’s economic situation—and cultural security
Following prior multilevel analyses (Ariely, 2012; Green, 2009), we evaluated the effect of Human Development Index (HDI) as both an index of macro-level threat, and as a moderator of the relationships between individual-level economic and cultural security and attitudes toward globalization
Summary
Whereas attitudes toward globalization are often quite positive, many people around the world feel that their “way of life” needs to be protected In social psychology, it is well-established that when people feel threatened, economically and/or culturally, they are more likely to be negatively inclined to at least one aspect of globalization—that is, immigration. The researchers hypothesized that this relationship would help explain attitudes toward globalization more broadly. They proposed that attitudes toward globalization would be more positive when people feel a sense of economic security—in their own income and job, as well as in their nation’s economic situation—and cultural security (i.e., when people do not feel that their way of life needs to be protected from foreign influence). The researchers addressed the role of the socioeconomic climate of countries in which people live, as indicated by the United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI)
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