Public misperceptions about immigrant integration: More than just motivated reasoning?

All over the Western world public misperceptions about immigration and immigrants have become a pervasive phenomenon and, consequently, received increased scholarly interest. Most studies tend to focus on the influence of individual traits with the motivated reasoning theory as the central frame of reference; stating how people construct their perceptions of immigration and immigrants based on individual traits such as pre-existing attitudes, ideologies, and political beliefs. In this article, we direct the attention towards an interesting puzzle that does not fit into this predominant theoretical conviction. By utilizing unique survey data collected in Denmark (n=2,015) the paper demonstrates how negative misperceptions are widespread across ideological and attitudinal divides. Hence, negative misperceptions are prevalent among those who hold negative attitudes towards immigration as well as among those who hold pro-immigration attitudes. Based on this we argue that misperceptions about immigrants not only are linked to individual traits, and bring forward the argument that misperceptions might also be shaped the dynamics in the broader party-political landscape.