Why Does Corrective Information Have a Muted Effect on Immigration Attitudes?*

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University or the views of Utah State University. [...] 1 Introduction The media portrays immigrants as criminals (Farris and Silber Mohamed 2018), welfare abusers (Brown 2016; Yoo 2008), and a general threat to the well-being of the United States (L. R. Chavez 2008; M. [...] In the control groups, respondents were warned that they were about to be asked about Mexican immigrants again but were not otherwise provided corrective information about welfare use.1 In the experimental condition, respondents were given the same warning that the control group received, in addition to corrective information about welfare use among Mexican immigrants.2 The survey was rounded out. [...] Given the prevalence of misinformation, can corrective information improve the public’s attitudes toward immigrants? The idea is alluring, and several studies have tested the possibility by providing research subjects with a range of corrective information about immigrants. [...] The main results of the paper are robust to the inclusion of control variables such as partisan identity and ideology (see appendix E, table 3).