The evaluation of immigrants’ political acculturation strategies

Abstract

Although acculturation involves changes of both minority and majority group members, previous research focused primarily on the former. Furthermore, while the relevance of acculturation in the socio-cultural domain is well established, research has largely ignored acculturation in the political domain. This paper presents two experimental studies that investigated the extent to which Dutch majority members’ out-group feelings are influenced by the political acculturation strategies of Muslim immigrants. Majority members reacted strongly to the different acculturation strategies, defined in terms of group interests and goals. Their feelings were more negative when Muslims were presented as politically advancing the interests of their in-group, while Muslims furthering goals that benefit society as a whole were met with considerably less resistance. The differential evaluation of the political acculturation strategies depended on perceptions of power threat.