Attitudes toward Immigrants, Immigration, and Multiculturalism in New Zealand: A Social Psychological Analysis

2008/03/01 by Colleen Ward, Anne‐Marie Masgoret, Anne-Marie Masgoret
Social Sciences · #Migration, Refugees, and Integration #Racial and Ethnic Identity Research #Social and Intergroup Psychology

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1747-7379.2007.00119.x

openalex publication_date 2008/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

The research examines attitudes toward immigrants and immigration policy based on a random sample of 2,020 New Zealand households. The analyses revealed that New Zealanders have positive attitudes toward immigrants and endorse multiculturalism to a greater extent than Australians and EU citizens. In addition, structural equation modeling produced an excellent fit of the data to a social psychological model commencing with multicultural ideology and intercultural contact as exogenous variables, leading, in turn, to diminished perceptions of threat, more positive attitudes toward immigrants, and, finally, support for New Zealand's policies on the number and sources of migrants.

Citations

• Comparative fit indexes in structural models.
• Prejudice as a Response to Perceived Group Threat: Population Composition and Anti-Immigrant and Racial Prejudice in Europe
• The Psychology of Culture Shock

Related

• Network Analysis of Attitudes towards Immigrants in Asia
• Explaining Attitudes toward Immigration: The Role of Regional Context and Individual Predispositions
• Thinking Globally about Attitudes to Immigration: Concerns about Social Conflict, Economic Competition and Cultural Threat
• Immigrants’ attitudes towards immigration: convergence towards majority views or ethnoracial polarization?
• The Reception of Immigrants and Refugees in Western Countries: The Challenges of Our Time