Replication Data for: Beliefs and Opinions about “Illegal” and “Undocumented” Immigrants: Conceptual Replication of a Null Result

Activists and politicians often express a belief that the language used to describe immigrant populations, such as “illegal” vs. “undocumented,” can impact policy opinions. Existing experimental studies, however, have found relatively little support for that conjecture. In this note, we extend this line of research by exploring whether language impacts perceptions about unauthorized immigrants, such as their association with criminal behavior. Our study uses a conjoint design with experimentally manipulated instructions: respondents are randomly asked to identify profiles that belong to “illegal” or “undocumented” immigrants. We find that language used in the conjoint instructions does not impact perceptions about unauthorized population. At the same time, our observational results show that respondents’ preferences for terms “illegal” and “undocumented” are related to attitudes toward immigration. We discuss the implication of these results for the debate regarding the role of labels in political conflict over immigration.

活动人士与政界人士常持有一种观点，即用于描述移民群体的措辞（如"非法（illegal）"与"无证（undocumented）"）会对政策看法产生影响。然而现有实验研究并未为这一推测提供多少实证支持。本研究简报拓展了该领域的研究脉络，探讨措辞是否会影响公众对无合法身份移民（unauthorized immigrants）的认知——例如公众将这类群体与犯罪行为相关联的程度。本研究采用带有经实验操控指示语的联合分析实验设计（conjoint design）：将受访者随机分组，要求其识别标注为"非法移民"或"无证移民"的个体档案。研究发现，联合分析实验指示语中使用的措辞并未影响受访者对无合法身份移民群体的认知。与此同时，观察性研究结果显示，受访者对"illegal"与"undocumented"这两个术语的偏好，与其对移民问题的态度密切相关。本文最后讨论了上述研究结果对移民议题政治争端中标签作用相关争论的启示。