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Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2014 in the subject Sociology - Politics, Majorities, Minorities, grade: 1,0, University of Pittsburgh, language: English, abstract: This study deals with the question: do capitalist values increase or decrease xenophobia?There has been much scholarly debate about the impact of capitalism on xenophobia. While it is widely accepted that capitalist economies create values which then in turn influence xenophobic attitudes, this debate is in large part not settled yet. As previous studies on the subject have failed at providing comprehensive conceptualizations of and quantitative evidence on capitalist culture and values. To address this gap in the literature, the latest wave of the World Value Survey will be used to inductively develop a set of capitalist values from individuals' responses to questions on economic issues. Through this inductive approach, four distinct values associated with capitalism will be identified: materialism, economic individualism, a belief in small government, and a capitalist work ethic. Then, OLS will be used to assess the relationship between these four values and individuals' attitudes toward immigrants as well as people of different race and religion. It is found that materialism and capitalist work ethic increase hostility toward people different from oneself, whereas economic individualism decreases it. Belief in small government does not have a statistically significant impact on xenophobia. These findings have important implications for both the scholarly debate on the effects of capitalist culture and the public discussion about economic reform.
