ABSTRACT: In current society, immigration is a reality that poses important challenges. Identifying factors that favor a more positive evaluation of immigrants could lead to new avenues of intervention to achieve more positive intergroup relationships and greater social well-being. Given that a more abstract thinking style promotes less focus on obstacles and difficulties, the aim of the present study was to examine the link between construal level and stereotype, focusing on people with a more conservative ideology, a population that tends to have a higher level of prejudice towards immigrants. We hypothesized that conservative people with a more abstract thinking style would report less negative stereotypes than those with a more concrete thinking style. In a sample of Spanish adults (N = 1,208, 60.1% women), we applied a questionnaire measuring thinking style, ideology, the degree to which immigrants are perceived as competitors, and the dimension of warmth (morality and sociability) of the stereotype content of that group. We found that more conservative people perceived, to a greater extent, immigrants as competitors and considered them less moral and sociable. However, the warmth (morality and sociability) attributed to immigrants was significantly higher for those conservative individuals who presented more abstract thinking style, with perceived competition as the mediating variable. As it is possible to induce a more abstract thinking style, the results of this study open a new avenue for intervention in promoting more positive attitudes toward immigrants, especially in more conservative people who tend to present more negative stereotypes towards this collective.

Keywords: Thinking style, Stereotypes, Intergroup competition, Ideology.

RESUMEN: En la sociedad actual la inmigración es una realidad que plantea importantes retos. Conocer qué factores favorecen una evaluación más positiva de las personas migrantes puede ofrecer nuevas vías de intervención para lograr relaciones intergrupales más positivas y mayor bienestar social. Dado que un estilo de pensamiento más abstracto promueve una menor focalización en los obstáculos y dificultades, el objetivo fue profundizar en el vínculo entre estilo de pensamiento y estereotipo, centrándonos en personas con ideología más conservadora, una población que tiende a un mayor prejuicio hacia las personas migrantes. Hipotetizamos que las personas conservadoras con un estilo de pensamiento más abstracto informarían un estereotipo menos negativo que las de estilo más concreto. En una muestra de adultos españoles (N = 1,208, 60.1% mujeres) aplicamos un cuestionario midiendo estilo de pensamiento, ideología, grado en que se percibe a los inmigrantes como competidores y la dimensión de calidez (moralidad y sociabilidad) del contenido del estereotipo hacia ese grupo. Comprobamos que las personas más conservadoras percibían a los inmigrantes como más competidores y menos morales y sociables. La calidez (moralidad y sociabilidad) atribuida a los inmigrantes era significativamente mayor en las personas conservadoras con estilo de pensamiento más abstracto, siendo la percepción de competición la variable mediadora. Dado que es posible inducir a pensar con un estilo de pensamiento más abstracto, estos resultados abren una nueva vía de intervención para fomentar actitudes más positivas hacia los inmigrantes, especialmente en las personas más conservadoras, que suelen presentar estereotipos más negativos sobre este colectivo.

Palabras clave: Estilo de pensamiento, Estereotipos, Competición intergrupal, Ideología.

Spain is one of the European countries that receives the most immigrants. In the third quarter of 2023, the country received 118,667 immigrants, mainly from Latin America and Morocco (INE, 2023). Despite the fact that increasing amounts of data show that all countries need immigration (World Bank, 2023), a large part of the news media tends to spotlight the negative consequences of immigration and, only to a lesser extent, points out the advantages to the economy and culture that the arrival of immigrants can have (see Ebert et al., 2018). This bias in the media regarding immigration influences the attitudes of citizens, making them more negative, and increasing the perception of immigration as a threat to the host population of that country (Burscher et al., 2015, Jacobs et al., 2016).

Perceiving immigration as a threat increases social conflicts and reduces the possibility of migrants fully integrating into host communities. For this reason, identifying strategies that facilitate a more positive perception of immigrants is a key factor in promoting a harmonious coexistence between groups of different cultural origins and general social well-being. In this research, we delve into some factors that can favor a more positive and less threatening image of immigrants, with special interest in knowing their role in social groups that traditionally report greater prejudice toward immigration, such as people with more right-wing or politically conservative ideologies (Altemeyer, 1998; Lipset & Raab, 1978; Napier & Jost, 2008; Sibley & Duckitt, 2013).

The study of the relationship between ideological factors and intergroup relations has a long tradition in social psychology. Since the classic work of Adorno et al. (1950) on authoritarianism, there has been great interest in knowing the factors that affect the relationship between ideology (analyzed from different approaches) and prejudice, and multiple lines of evidence agree that more conservative ideologies are the most intolerant toward minority outgroups (Napier & Jost, 2008). For this reason, in our work, we are interested in determining the influence of thinking style on negative stereotypes associated with minority outgroups, particularly among conservative populations, which are potentially more prejudiced compared to other populations.

Extensive previous research on the Stereotype Content Model (SCM; Fiske et al., 2002) offers a solid theoretical framework for exploring new variables that help to reduce the negative stereotypes and prejudices toward immigrants. In this classic model, two dimensions of evaluation of the outgroups are proposed: warmth and competence. Following the SCM, warmth helps us to anticipate a group’s intention towards us, whereas competence helps us to know whether the group can carry out these intentions. These two dimensions are influenced by perceived status and competition, respectively. Thus, the model expects that the greater the perceived status of the outgroup, the more competence is attributed to the members of that group; the higher the perceived level of competition, the lower the level of warmth attributed to them. We want to emphasize that perceived competition refers to the fact that the amount of available resources is limited, in such a way that if one group accesses them, it prevents the other group from accessing them. This asymmetry in resources is also known as the zero-sum and implies that the greater the perception that others will take away resources that we think belong to us, the less warmth we attribute to them. The SCM was further developed including emotions associated with stereotypes and facilitation-harm behaviors towards outgroups (Cuddy et al., 2007), resulting in the Behaviors from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes map framework (BIAS map). Specifically, the combinations of the warmth and competence dimensions give rise to four types of stereotypes that induce the following emotions: pity (low competence and high warmth), envy (high competence and low warmth), contempt (low competence and warmth), and admiration (high competence and warmth). Some authors (Leach et al., 2007) highlighted the role of morality in defining this stereotype; subsequently, Fiske and collaborators (Kervyn et al., 2015) have also recognized the importance of this facet considering that the warmth dimension is made up of two subdimensions: morality (how trustworthy, honest and sincere we think that someone is) and sociability (how warm, friendly, and likable). The warmth dimension has shown primacy in social perception, mainly because it is more informative regarding whether the interaction with another person or group is a threat or benefit (Abele & Wojciszke, 2007; 2014; Cuddy et al., 2008; Ybarra et al., 2001). While warmth has been considered a priority by the authors of the SCM (Cuddy et al., 2008; Fiske, 2018; Fiske et al., 2007), current research indicates that the subdimension of morality is the most relevant for forming impressions of both people and social groups (Brambilla & Leach, 2014; Leach et al., 2007; 2015), recently giving rise to the moral primacy model (Brambilla et al., 2021). More recent work on the Spontaneous Stereotype Content Model (SSCM) confirms that when people are asked to spontaneously attribute characteristics to others, they most frequently use the dimension of warmth (morality then sociability) when thinking about others (Nicolas et al., 2022). Sociability and morality make specific contributions to the dimension of warmth, as Brambilla and collaborators (2021) mentioned, a person may be perceived as friendly but unfair and corrupt.

In this research, we are especially interested in knowing how the level of abstraction with which the group being evaluated is mentally represented, in our case, that of immigrants in general, favors a more positive stereotype. Construal Level Theory (CLT; Trope & Liberman, 2003) proposes that people can represent objects, events, and actions by focusing more on the details of how to perform the behavior, the context, and in the short-term (concrete mindset); or by focusing more on the final goals, why they perform a behavior, and its long-term consequences (abstract mindset). According to CLT, the level of mental representation is a continuous dimension with two opposite poles: concrete and abstract. The level of abstraction with which mental representations are made varies not only between people, but also within the same person according to the contextual circumstances, something that opens the possibility of changing the level of representation or thinking style to adapt to the circumstances at hand (Nguyen et al. al., 2020). CLT proposes a bidirectional relationship between psychological distance (temporal, spatial, social, and probabilistic) and thinking style: the greater the psychological distance, the more abstract the mental representations; and the greater the level of abstraction in the mental representation, the greater the perceived psychological distance. Psychological distance is not the only way in which to modify thinking style; research in this theoretical area suggests other procedures, such as priming (e.g., Freitas et al., 2004; Fujita et al., 2006), messages that emphasize the characteristics of a concrete or abstract style (White et al., 2011), or even environmental manipulations that promote one thinking style over another style (Bülbül & Menon, 2010; Mehta et al., 2012) are also effective in changing it.

Of special interest for our research are results that indicate that an abstract thinking style favors focusing on the long-term, attending less to short-term contextual obstacles (Carrera et al., 2020). Likewise, an abstract thinking style promotes a more universal orientation, greater perspective taking, and empathy, all of which are factors that facilitate engaging in a greater number of prosocial behaviors towards others, including stigmatized groups (Levy et al., 2002).

If a more abstract thinking style can reduce the number of perceived difficulties and increase empathy toward outgroups, it is reasonable to hypothesize that it also promotes a more positive evaluation of these outgroups. This relationship is especially interesting if it occurs for people who show more prejudice toward immigrants, such as people with politically conservative ideologies (Altemeyer, 1998; Levy et al., 2002; Lipset & Raab, 1978; Napier & Jost, 2008; Sibley & Duckitt, 2013). Levy et al. (2002) showed that thinking style and ideology did not correlate and had different effects on the evaluation of stigmatized groups: while abstraction increased empathy toward these groups, which made it easier for them not to perceive others in a very negative way, ideology did not correlate with empathy, and the most conservative individuals perceived stigmatized groups more negatively.

The aim of this study was to examine the link between construal level and stereotype of immigrants, focusing on people with a more conservative ideology, we hypothesize the following: a) the most conservative people (versus progressive people) will hold a more negative stereotype of immigrants in terms of both the overall dimension of warmth and its facets of morality and sociability; b) as maintaining a more abstract thinking style promotes less attention to obstacles and difficulties, and perceived competition in the outgroup can be understood as an obstacle to achieving one’s own goals, we expect that, in the group of more conservative people, the greater the abstraction, the lower the perceived competition from the outgroup; and c) finally, based on the relationships between the variables described, we expect that, in the group of more conservative people, the influence of a more abstract thinking style on the stereotype content towards immigrants will be mediated by lower perceived intergroup competition (the precursor of the warmth dimension in the SCM); in other words, we expect that the greater the level of abstraction in the thinking style of conservative people, the lower the perceived intergroup competition with the outgroup (immigrants) will be, and therefore the more positive the stereotypes held towards that social group.

Results

We performed a correlation analysis between the variables of our study: thinking style, ideology, perceived intergroup competition, warmth, and its dimensions-sociability and morality (Table 1). The results show that thinking style significantly and positively correlated with stereotype: the higher the level of abstraction is, the more warmth, sociability, and morality attributed to immigrants. Political ideology significantly and positively correlated with intergroup competition: the greater the degree of conservatism is, a greater perceived intergroup competition. Additionally, political ideology significantly and negatively correlated with the stereotype content: with higher levels of conservatism, less warmth, morality, and sociability are attributed to immigrants. Perceived intergroup competition, as proposed by the SCM, negatively and significantly correlated with stereotype content: the greater the degree of perceived intergroup competition is, the lower the attribution of warmth (sociability and morality) to the outgroup.

Table 1
Means, standard deviations and correlations among thinking style, political ideology, perceived intergroup competition, warmth, sociability, and morality attributed to the outgroup

*p < .05, **p < .01.

To examine the effect of ideology on the rest of the variables, we divided the scores into three levels: 1-3 (progressive, n = 770, 63.74%), 4 (center, n = 278, 23.01%), and 5-7 (conservative, n = 160, 13.25%). Napier and Luguri (2013) justify this division when the sample is biased toward one of the ideological poles. Through analysis of variance, we compared the scores of the warmth component and its dimensions, morality and sociability, among the three ideological groups. Post-hoc comparisons were made among the three ideological groups using the Tukey-b test. Results showed that the most conservative people present a more negative stereotype of immigrants both in terms of global warmth and the subdimension of morality; there are statistically significant differences between the three ideological groups. Sociability follows the same direction, however the difference between the center and conservative groups is not statistically significant. Likewise, significantly higher scores were obtained for perceived intergroup competition for participants with more conservative ideologies (Table 2).

Table 2
Comparisons based on political ideology in terms of stereotypes and intergroup competition

Note. Different subscripts in the same row indicate significant differences (p < .05) between comparison groups. *p < .001.

Considering the relationships between construal level, stereotypes, perceived competition and ideology, we propose that thinking style indirectly influences stereotypes associated with immigrants through perceived competition with this group and that this indirect relationship is moderated by the ideologies of participants. Figures 1, 2 and 3 and Table 3 summarize the results of moderated mediation analysis.

Figure 1
Moderated mediation model for warmth

Figure 2
Moderated mediation model for sociability

Figure 3
Moderated mediation model for morality

Table 3
Moderated mediation analysis of warmth, sociability, and morality perceived in immigrants

Note. Nonstandard coefficients B are included in the table. Confidence Interval (CI): if it contains 0, then it is not significant (Hayes, 2018).

As shown in Table 3 and Figure 1, the results reveal that there is a both a direct and a conditional indirect relationship between the thinking style and warmth attributed to immigrants. The model indicates that thinking style influences the attribution of warmth to immigrants, that is, thinking style promotes a more positive stereotype of this group, in two ways: through a direct effect (the greater the abstraction, the greater the attributed warmth) and through a conditional indirect effect (specifically, for participants with more conservative ideologies, ≥ 4, a more abstract thinking style favors lower perceived intergroup competition, which increases the attribution of warmth to immigrants).

Similarly, in the case of sociability, the greater the abstraction, the greater the perceived sociability (direct effect). The conditional indirect effect shows that when participants are more conservative (≥ 3), those who are more abstract in thinking style perceive lower competition with people who are immigrants, which favors the attribution of a greater degree of sociability towards them.

Once again, the same explanatory model is repeated for the morality variable, revealing a similar relationship: a more abstract thinking style reduces the degree of perceived intergroup competition among the more conservative participants, which favors the attribution of greater morality to immigrants. The direct effect of thinking style on morality was almost significative.