Multilingualism enhances immigration acceptance through increased intergroup quality contact: A proof of concept in New Jersey and Spain
Multilingualism can potentially increase empathy and facilitate contact between a given country's own nationals and immigrants. A proof of concept exercise was conducted with students from the US (N = 112) and Spain (N = 107), and a small nonstudent sample (N = 22) also from Spain. The effect of the number of languages spoken on immigration acceptance was assayed in all three samples using a questionnaire based on the European Social Survey, and empathy and contact with immigrants were additionally determined in the Spanish samples. The results showed that multilingual students were significantly more accepting of immigrants than monolinguals in the samples from both the US and Spain. The number of languages spoken was a significant mediator between contact with immigrants and immigration acceptance. Empathy was significantly correlated with the acceptance of immigrants from poor countries, without any apparent connection to the number of languages spoken. The results emphasize the importance of multilingualism in improving crosscultural attitudes by increasing the quality of contact with immigrants. Learning the languages spoken by immigrants could be explored as a method for facilitating positive contact between groups in host societies.