Immigrants: citizens’ acceptance depends on questions asked

The number of immigrants the Swiss are willing to take in on an annual basis depends greatly on the quantified proposal (i.e. high or low) put forward to them - as recently revealed by a team of UNIGE researchers. How many immigrants per year should Switzerland be prepared to welcome? Do the figures put forward by political parties and conveyed by the media play a role in influencing public opinion? Psychologists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, set about testing a well-known reasoning bias - anchoring bias - that consists in providing a deliberately low or high figure for information purposes before respondents give their opinion on a subject. The researchers found that the figure supplied played a vital role in shaping respondents' opinions, regardless of their political orientation or the political party responsible for the figure. The research, which is published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology , points out the dangers of number-based political votes, since public opinion is easily swayed by the first number conveyed in the media. The issue of immigration has dominated the political landscape in recent years. Some countries, such as Germany, have opened their doors, while others such as Hungary have been more reluctant.