The polarizing impact of numeracy, economic literacy, and science literacy on the perception of immigration

PLoS One. 2022 Oct 7;17(10):e0274680. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0274680. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Immigrants might be perceived as a threat to a country's jobs, security, and cultural identity. In this study, we aimed to test whether individuals with higher numerical, scientific, and economic literacy were more polarized in their perception of immigration, depending on their cultural worldview orientation. We measured these variables in a representative sample of citizens in a medium-sized city in northern Italy. We found evidence that numerical, scientific, and economic literacy polarize concerns about immigration aligning them to people's worldview orientations. Individuals with higher numerical, economic, and scientific literacy were less concerned about immigration if they held an egalitarian-communitarian worldview, while they were more concerned about immigration if they held a hierarchical-individualistic worldview. On the contrary, individuals with less numerical, economic, and scientific literacy did not show a polarized perception of immigration. Results reveal that citizens with higher knowledge and ability presented a more polarized perception of immigration. Conclusions highlight the central role of cultural worldviews over information theories in shaping concerns about immigration.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Emigrants and Immigrants*
  • Emigration and Immigration*
  • Humans
  • Italy
  • Literacy
  • Perception

Grants and funding

All the authors are thankful to the Istituto di Scienze Della Sicurezza (ISSTN; Institute of Security Sciences; https://projects.unitn.it/isstn/) at the University of Trento and the Comune di Trento (Trento Municipality) for logistic support in data collection. The ISSTN and Comune di Trento provided material support for collecting the data for this study. Specifically, they were responsible for sending out, by regular mail, letters inviting respondents to fill out the online questionnaire and providing telephone assistance to those respondents who required help filling out the online questionnaire. The funders had no role in study design, data analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The authors and the study received no financial support from the founders. None of the authors received a salary from the founders.