Lucas, Christopher and Moskowitz, Daniel: Partisan Cues and Opinion Formation about Immigration: Results from a Pilot Experiment

(PDF) Immigration attitudes are of great interest to political scientists. Recent literature sheds light on the role of material self-interest and sociotropic considerations in the formation of opinions about immigration policy. 

However, surprisingly little is known about the process by which individuals form opinions about immigration. We hypothesize that immigration attitudes develop in response to partisan identity and cues and that this effect is moderated by the individuals with which one comes into contact. We test our theory with an interactive survey experiment and find largely inconclusive results. We propose a revised design to address the shortcomings of the pilot.