Citizens' national identity criteria and attitudes toward immigrants' cultural impact: ingroup-outgroup boundary setting and permeability across national contexts.

Introduction: As international migration has increased over time, citizens in many countries have become exposed to diverse cultural ideas and practices that differ from the prevailing culture. Citizens who think that national identity is reserved for those who belong to the dominant ethnocultural group (ethnocultural view), or is achieved through a legitimation process (legitimation view), may hold less positive attitudes toward immigrants' cultural impact (I-Cultural Impact). Citizens who think that national identity is determined by respect for and affiliation with the nation (the civic view) may hold more positive attitudes. Strong civil liberties may support cultural inclusion, while a relatively large migrant population may constrain it. This paper examines the citizen-immigrant cultural nexus through the ingroup-outgroup boundary set by citizens and the broader contexts that shape boundary permeability. Method: The 34-country data analyzed are from the 2013 National Identity survey of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). Multilevel models with cross-level interactions were run with I-Cultural Impact as the dependent variable, national identity views as individual-level predictors, and civil liberties and migrant population size as country-level predictors. Results: Endorsers of the ethnocultural and legitimation views have more negative attitudes toward I-Cultural Impact, whereas endorsers of the civic view have more positive attitudes. Citizens in countries with strong civil liberties have more positive attitudes toward I-Cultural Impact. However, under strong civil liberties, there is a stronger association between the legitimation view and negative attitudes. This moderation effect also holds with the ethnocultural view, but only with large migrant populations. With small migrant populations and strong civil liberties, there is a weaker association between the ethnocultural view and negative attitudes. Discussion: Strong civil liberties increase the ingroup-outgroup permeability, creating tension among endorsers of the ethnocultural and legitimation views who set strict boundaries. Endorsers of the ethnocultural view perceive this tension when cultural threat becomes evident with a large migrant population. This tension persists for endorsers of the legitimation view, who rely mostly on indirect indicators of legitimation and may thus engage in gatekeeping as a matter of course. The civic view's expansive boundary-setting facilitates outgroup inclusion regardless of variations in boundary permeability.