Danielle Gaucher’s research while affiliated with University of Winnipeg and other places

Canadian immigration programs are increasingly emphasizing regionalization in order to contribute to the population base of smaller Canadian communities and to address local labour market needs. Despite frequent Canadian national surveys of public attitudes toward immigrants and immigration, however, little is known about the warmth of the welcome presented to immigrants in regions outside of the large metropolises. The current study involved a representative survey of attitudes toward immigrants and immigration in eleven smaller communities across Canada, including Kamloops (BC), Wood Buffalo (AB), Prince Albert (SK), Brandon (MB), Thunder Bay (ON), Greater Sudbury (ON), Saint-Hyacinthe (QC), Bathurst (NB), Charlottetown (PEI), Cape Breton (NS), and St. John's (NL). The study also examined the extent to which individual demographic characteristics and two community variables – the size of the community and the immigrant share of the community population – predicted these attitudes. While there were differences between the surveyed communities, overall, residents of these communities were relatively satisfied with Canada's immigration levels, were quite willing to believe that refugee claimants are "real" refugees and that the Federal Government has control over who can immigrate, and supported bringing in immigrants who have the work skills that the country needs. They were less sure of the integration of immigrants into Canadian society in terms of adopting Canadian values. Younger, female, White and highly educated residents of these communities were more likely to hold positive immigration attitudes. Furthermore, immigrant respondents were more likely to hold positive attitudes toward immigration and less likely to believe that immigrants are not adopting Canadian values and that the government has lost control over who can immigrate. At the community level, residents in communities in which immigrants constitute a higher share of the population were more likely to express negative attitudes toward immigrants and immigration. Overall, the findings provide some optimism for the positive reception that immigrants are likely to receive in smaller Canadian communities. They also demonstrate, however, that attitudes in these communities are not uniform and provide information for community leaders and policy-makers about who is most likely to benefit from interventions to promote more positive attitudes. Résumé: Les programmes d'immigration canadiens mettent de plus en plus l'accent sur la régionalisation afin de contribuer à la base démographique des petites communautés canadiennes et de répondre aux besoins du marché du travail local. Malgré les fréquentes enquêtes nationales canadiennes sur les attitudes du public à l'égard des immigrants et de l'immigration, on sait peu de choses sur la chaleur de l'accueil réservé aux immigrants dans les régions situées en dehors des grandes métropoles. La présente étude a consisté en une enquête représentative des attitudes à l'égard des immigrants et de l'immigration dans onze petites collectivités du Canada, notamment Kamloops (BC), Wood Buffalo (AB), Prince Albert (SK), Brandon (MB), Thunder Bay (ON), le Grand Sudbury (ON), Saint-Hyacinthe (QC), Bathurst (NB), Charlottetown (IPE), Cape Breton (NÉ), et St John (TN&L). L'étude a également examiné dans quelle mesure les caractéristiques démographiques individuelles et deux variables communautaires - la taille de la collectivité et la proportion d'immigrants dans la population de la collectivité - permettaient de prédire ces attitudes. Bien qu'il y ait des différences entre les collectivités étudiées, dans l'ensemble, les résidents de ces communautés étaient relativement satisfaits des niveaux d'immigration du Canada, étaient tout à fait disposés à croire que les demandeurs d'asile sont de « vrais » réfugiés et que le gouvernement fédéral a le contrôle sur les personnes qui peuvent immigrer, et soutenaient l'arrivée d'immigrants qui ont les compétences professionnelles dont le pays a besoin. Ils étaient moins convaincus de l'intégration des immigrants dans la société canadienne en termes d'adoption des valeurs canadiennes. Les résidents de ces collectivités, plus jeunes, de sexe féminin, de race blanche et ayant un niveau d'éducation élevé, étaient plus susceptibles d'avoir une attitude positive à l'égard de l'immigration. En outre, les répondants immigrants étaient plus susceptibles d'avoir des attitudes positives à l'égard de l'immigration et moins susceptibles de croire que les immigrants n'adoptent pas les valeurs canadiennes et que le gouvernement a perdu le contrôle sur les personnes qui peuvent immigrer. Au niveau communautaire, les résidents des communautés dans lesquelles les immigrants constituent une part plus importante de la population étaient plus susceptibles d'exprimer des attitudes négatives à l'égard des immigrants et de l'immigration. Dans l'ensemble, les résultats permettent d'être optimiste quant à l'accueil positif que les immigrants sont susceptibles de recevoir dans les petites collectivités canadiennes. Ils démontrent également que les attitudes dans ces collectivités ne sont pas uniformes et fournissent des informations aux dirigeants communautaires et aux décideurs politiques sur les personnes les plus susceptibles de bénéficier d'interventions visant à promouvoir des attitudes plus positives.

Many First Nations homes in Canada do not have adequate water services. This issue is unlikely to be resolved without public pressure on the government. Thus, we investigated one strategy to increase non-Indigenous Canadians’ support for government action: framing water as a human right. Informed by a partnership with Indigenous community members and multidisciplinary collaborators, we conducted seven experiments that sampled non-Indigenous Canadian community members (N = 584) and university undergraduates (N = 274). Overall, framing water as a human right increased public support, relative to control conditions. Further, the human rights frame indirectly increased support for government action through increases in perceived suffering (physical and financial) and empathy. We discuss policy implications and end with a call for action.

Political solidarity is often key to addressing societal injustice. Yet social and political psychology are without a common definition or comprehensive measure of this construct, complicating advancements in this burgeoning field. To address these gaps, we advance a novel understanding and measure of this construct. We conceptualized political solidarity as a construct consisting of three factors—allyship with a minority outgroup, a connection to their cause, and a commitment to working with them to achieve social change—that can emerge within and across social groups. Five studies empirically supported our conceptualization and measure; all participants were Canadian university students. In Study 1, 1,594 participants completed the initial 30-item pool. A series of exploratory factor analyses, along with indices of factor retention, supported the three-factor model. We retained three items per factor to create the 9-item Political Solidarity Measure (PSM). This three-factor model adequately fit Study 2 data (N = 275). In Study 3 (N = 268), we found evidence of the PSM’s convergent and discriminant validity. Studies 3 and 4 assessed the PSM’s retest stability in the medium-term (three to six months; Study 3) and short-term (a three-week period; Study 4; N = 126). Finally, we demonstrate the PSM’s predictive validity in Study 5 (N = 221). Controlling for modern racism, political orientation, and gender, PSM scores predicted collective action intentions and behavior benefitting the outgroup: Participants who reported higher political solidarity donated more to the outgroup’s cause and were more likely to agree to create a message of support.

We review conceptual and empirical contributions to system justification theory over the last fifteen years, emphasizing the importance of an experimental approach and consideration of context. First, we review the indirect evidence of the system justification motive via complimentary stereotyping. Second, we describe injunctification as direct evidence of a tendency to view the extant status quo (the way things are) as the way things should be. Third, we elaborate on system justification's contextual nature and the circumstances, such as threat, dependence, inescapability, and system confidence, which are likely to elicit defensive bolstering of the status quo and motivated ignorance of critical social issues. Fourth, we describe how system justification theory can increase our understanding of both resistance to and acceptance of social change, as a change moves from proposed, to imminent, to established. Finally, we discuss how threatened systems shore up their authority by co‐opting legitimacy from other sources, such as governments that draw on religious concepts, and the role of institutional‐level factors in perpetuating the status quo.

How can agents of social change increase public support for minority communities? In three studies, we demonstrate how heightened feelings of community connection can predict support for addressing injustice in minority communities. Community connection, when experimentally evoked (Study 1) or measured (Study 3), was associated with heightened support for the government addressing substandard conditions in an African American housing project (Studies 1 and 3) and Native American reservations (Study 1). Mediation analyses revealed that this effect emerges, at least in part, because of a heightened perceived value of all communities—not merely one’s own (Studies 1 and 3). One reason that stronger feelings of community connection lead to (Study 2) or are associated with (Study 3) greater valuing of communities is a strengthened superordinate community identity. We tested additional potential mediators of the community connection–support relationship; out-group identification mediated but outgroup attachment did not. Implications for social change are discussed.

Complementing well-established antecedents of anti-migrant opinion (e.g., threat), we investigated how system-sanctioned ideologies—that is, the collection of beliefs and values espoused by the government in power—are linked with migrant stereotypes. Using Canada as a case study, across three waves of national survey data (N = 1,080), we found that system-sanctioned pro-migrant ideologies corresponded with (relatively) more positive migrant stereotype content (i.e., increases in perceived warmth and competence). Moreover, controlling for other political ideologies, increases in migrant stereotype positivity were linked to people’s motivation to justify their sociopolitical systems, suggesting that system-sanctioned ideologies may be especially likely to influence the positivity of migrant stereotypes when people are motivated to justify their sociopolitical systems.

The number of refugees across the globe is at an alarming high and is expected to continue to rise for the foreseeable future. As a result, finding durable solutions for refugees has become a major challenge worldwide. The literature reviewed and policy implications discussed in this article are based on the premise that one of the major solutions to the refugee crisis must be refugee resettlement in new host countries. For such a solution to succeed, however, requires relatively favorable attitudes by members of host societies, protection of the well-being of refugees, and effective integration of refugees into new host countries. In this context, we begin by reviewing the literature on determinants of public attitudes toward refugees, the acculturation of refugees in host societies, and factors affecting refugee mental health, all of which are directly relevant to the success of the resettlement process. We then turn our attention to the policy implications of these literatures, and discuss strategies for improving public attitudes toward refugees and refugee resettlement in host countries; for improving the resettlement process to reduce mental health challenges; and for supporting the long-term acculturation and integration of refugees in their new homes. © 2017 The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues

Safety initiatives focus disproportionately on the travel dangers facing women. These initiatives may be well intentioned, but why the almost singular emphasis on danger facing female travelers? We hypothesized that hostile sexism underlies this imbalance, driven by a desire to prevent women from traveling. Participants read about a male or female traveling frequently or infrequently. We found that men high in hostile sexism (a) perceived more danger for a frequently traveling female and (b) mentioned danger more frequently in their travel advice to a female, regardless of travel frequency. Women–regardless of hostile sexism–also mentioned danger more frequently in travel advice to a female. In a second study, hostile sexism was positively associated with the desire to restrict women’s mobility, but not to protect them. We suggest that warnings of travel danger for women may operate as a form of social control to keep women “in their place”.