Although much extreme discourse is found at the poles, we still know little about how individuals in the center make sense of immigration as “complicated” and even “too complex” to make sense of. Such issues are important to address if we are to better understand the contemporary landscape of bias and belonging and the character of attitudes in the middle. We examine the issue by drawing on a unique survey of Californians and illustrative, linked, in-depth interviews. Using latent class analysis we identify five distinct attitudinal classes, showing that three, constituting 40 percent of respondents, lie between consistently pro- and anti-immigrant stances. Our interviews reveal that rather than expressing undifferentiated views, those in the middle express patterned forms of selective uncertainty that, in turn, allow them to frame the issue differently. At an ideological level, selective uncertainty helps individuals to narrow the scope of immigration in terms of what is determinable, and thus rationalize political commitments with outgroup bias toward the undocumented. At a discursive level, selective uncertainty affords an opportunity to soften or occlude bias and create a distance from the poles, especially on the right. Taken together, our findings open up the “black-boxed” middle of immigration attitudes to reveal its distinct categorical characteristics and show how selective uncertainty allows individuals to make sense of their positions. We discuss the theoretical and methodological implications of our findings, including for understanding immigration attitudes as a field of positions more generally.

中文翻译：

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两极之间有什么关系？加州移民态度中的选择性不确定性和遮蔽偏见

尽管在两极发现了许多极端的话语，但我们仍然对中间人如何理解移民是“复杂的”，甚至是“太复杂”而无法理解的知之甚少。如果我们要更好地理解当代偏见和归属感的景观以及中间态度的特征，这些问题就很重要。我们通过对加利福尼亚人的独特调查和说明性的、相互关联的深入访谈来研究这个问题。使用潜在类别分析，我们确定了五个不同的态度类别，表明三个（占受访者的 40%）介于一贯的支持和反对移民立场之间。我们的访谈表明，那些处于中间位置的人不是表达无差别的观点，而是表达了选择性不确定性的模式形式，这反过来又使他们能够以不同的方式构建问题。在意识形态层面上，选择性不确定性有助于个人根据可确定的内容缩小移民的范围，从而合理化政治承诺，对无证移民有外群体偏见。在话语层面，选择性不确定性提供了软化或遮蔽偏见的机会，并与两极保持距离，尤其是在右翼。综上所述，我们的研究结果打开了移民态度的“黑箱”中间，揭示了其独特的分类特征，并展示了选择性不确定性如何使个人理解他们的立场。我们讨论了我们研究结果的理论和方法论意义，包括更普遍地理解移民态度作为一个立场领域。