New Immigrants Are More Culturally Different than They Used to Be

Native-born American concerns about immigration are primarily abouthow immigration will affect the culture of the country as a whole and, to a lesser extent, how the newcomers will affect the economy.   One’s personal economic situation is not a major factor.  It’s reasonable to assume that the degree of cultural difference between native-born Americans and new immigrants affects the degree of cultural concern.  Thus, Americans would likely be less concerned over immigrants from Canada or Singapore than they would be over immigrants from Egypt or Azerbaijan. A large team of psychologists recently created an index of the cultural distance of people from numerous countries around the world relative to the United States.   The index is constructed from responses to theWorld Values Survey as well as linguistic and geographical distances.   Their index includes numerous different psychological facts such as individualism, power distance, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation, indulgence, harmony, mastery, embeddedness, hierarchy, egalitarian, autonomy, tolerance for deviant behavior, norm enforcement, openness, c onscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, creativity, altruism, and obedience.  These are all explained in more detail in thepaper.Their paper has an index where lower numbers indicate a culture more similar to that of the United States while a higher number indicates a culture more distant from that of the United States. Â...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 17, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs